What is the basis for Mount Vernon’s international cultural significance?
George Washington’s home and the associated outbuildings, gardens, and grounds together comprise an unparalleled example of a well preserved 18th-century Anglo-American cultural landscape and a prime illustration of plantation life and economy. The 14 18th-century buildings are particularly noteworthy in this regard, as they represent the most complete assemblage of original plantation structures in the country that survives from this era. Together with the surrounding formal and utilitarian gardens, lanes and walkways, and vistas and other landscape features, the core of the Mount Vernon plantation marks the height of three centuries of Anglo-American plantation development in the New World. The estate and the surrounding plantation were the product of the slave-based system of labor that was the most significant defining characteristic of colonial society in the American South. The development of Mount Vernon as the seat of a gentleman farmer’s estate was more than simply the result
