Leadership and Legacy: Conversations at the George Washington Presidential Library

There are many things that we take for granted in the modern United States. The president’s cabinet is one of them. Although the cabinet is a prominent fixture of the federal government, and a powerful and essential one at that, it has no foundation in the Constitution. The Framer’s discussed the idea of a cabinet at the Constitutional Convention, but they ultimately rejected it and left it on the cutting room floor. Yet, despite the fact that the cabinet has no Constitutional origin, it does have a historical one. On today’s episode, Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky joins Jim Ambuske to explore the cabinet’s emergence during George Washington’s presidency. She also answers listener questions about this formative moment in American history. Chervinsky is a historian at the White House Historical Association and the author of the new book, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution. Be sure to check out Mount Vernon’s Facebook Page and YouTube Channel for live stream programming every weekday at noon, with occasional evening events featuring your favorite authors.  You can find more information at https://www.mountvernon.org/digital. About Our Guest: Lindsay M. Chervinksy joined the Association in February 2019 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. She received her B.A. in history and political science at the George Washington University and her Ph.D. and Masters in Early American history from the University of California, Davis. She has received fellowships from the International Center for Jefferson Studies, the Society of Cincinnati, the Organization of American Historians, and the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington. She has published articles in the Law and History Review, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and several edited volumes on the presidency and Early America. Her book, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution will be published by Harvard University Press in Spring 2020. Lindsay has also shared her work with the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, the Society for Military History, the American Historical Association, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, and more. About Our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

Three hundred years ago, timber and turtles were key commodities for English settlers on Barbados and Jamaica. Barbadians sailed northwest to the island of St. Lucia where they harvested timber while Jamaicans headed to the Cayman Islands to take turtles in astounding numbers. Why did they seek these resources hundreds of miles away from their home islands? And what does it have to tell us about how settlers adapted to the environment in the early modern Caribbean? On today’s episode, Dr. Mary Draper joins Jim Ambuske to flesh out how timber and turtles became central to Barbadian and Jamaican society in the colonial era. Draper is an Assistant Professor of History at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas and an expert on the environmental history of the colonial Caribbean. About Our Guest: Mary Draper is Assistant Professor of History at Midwestern State University. She is a scholar of colonial and revolutionary North America and the greater Atlantic world.  Particularly interested in the history of the seventeenth-and eighteenth century British Caribbean, she is working on a book that recovers how the region's urban residents--from colonial officials and merchants to turtlers and enslaved pilots--amassed environmental knowledge to develop, defend, and sustain their volatile coastlines.  An article based on the project was published in the Fall 2017 edition of Early American Studies.  In both her research and teaching, Draper highlights the interconnections that crisscrossed the empires, culture, and ecologies of early North America and the Atlantic world.  After receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree from Rice University, she earned both her Master of Arts degree and  doctorate from the University of Virginia. About Our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

It's mid-March 2020 and chances are you're listening to this episode from the comfort of your home as you practice social distancing. Over the past few weeks many schools and businesses has suspended public operations and transitioned to an online environment in an effort to help limit the spread of the coronavirus, known as Covid-19.  While the Washington Library and Mount Vernon may temporarily be closed to the public as well, that doesn't mean we're not hard at work doing what we can to help students, teachers, and scholars make the most of this uncertain time. We've created a new website full of some of our best resources, and a few from our friends, to help facilitate online learning.  On today's episode, Sadie Troy of Mount Vernon's Education Department joins Jim Ambuske to discuss our new site, which you can find at www.mountvernon.org/onlinelearning. There you will find a number of resources to keep your brain engaged and help you expand your knowledge about George Washington and his early American world as we all make adjustments to our routines in the days ahead.  About Our Guest: Sadie Troy is the Student Learning Specialist in Mount Vernon's Education Department. Sadie's primary responsibilities include coordinating, supporting, and creating student programming. She serves as the Mount Vernon lead on The Situation Room Experience: Washington's Cabinet. About Our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

Dr. Ron Grim has been a geographer for over 40 years. After receiving his PhD from the University of Maryland, Ron embarked on a career that included stops at the National Archives of the United States, the Library of Congress, and the Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library. On today’s episode, Ron joins Jim Ambuske to discuss his long career as a geographer working with maps at these prestigious institutions. Geography is the study of humanity’s relationship with the Earth and its landscape, something that maps help to illuminate. As you’ll hear, maps are powerful teaching tools that can help us understand our place in the world, or at least the way we imagine it. Ron is helping the Washington Library evaluate its recently acquired Richard H. Brown Revolutionary War Map Collection. We’ve been fortunate to benefit from his expertise, just as others have over the last four decades. And be sure to stick around until the end of today’s show. Ron and Jim discuss a criminal caper involving a nefarious map dealer and how Ron’s detective work led to the recovery of a map by Samuel de Champlain. About Our Guest: Ron Grim is a graduate of the University of Maryland where he received his Ph.D. in Historical Geography. He is Curator of Maps Emeritus at the Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library. He joined the Leventhal Center in January 2005 after a three-decade career working with maps at the National Archives and the Library of Congress. He has curated a number of major exhibitions, including “Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America” (Library of Congress, 2003) and “We Are One: Mapping America’s Road from Revolution to Independence” (Leventhal Center, 2015). About Our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

On the morning of November 1, 1755, a devastating earthquake struck the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. The quake leveled buildings, triggered fires, and caused a tsunami that laid waste to the urban landscape. When it was all over, thousands were dead.  The Lisbon earthquake was a disaster of epic proportions, so much so that it became the subject of the first major international disaster relief effort. People from around the Atlantic world contributed funds to Lisbon and its inhabitants, including a £100,000 donation from King George II of Great Britain.  The quake also marked a change in how people around the Atlantic world responded to disasters. Surely, many who awoke that morning to celebrate All Saints Day attributed the devastation to God’s wrath, but in the era of the Enlightenment, many more still looked to reason and science as modes of explanation, and to alleviate the suffering. On today’s episode, Dr. Cindy Kierner of George Mason University joins us to discuss the origins of our modern attitudes toward disasters. She is the author of the new book, Inventing Disaster: The Culture of Calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood. And as you might have divined from the book’s subtitle, how we now respond to disasters like the coronavirus, California wildfires, or Hurricane Katrina is the product of a long history that dates back to the 17th century. About Our Guest: Cindy Kierner received her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1986. A specialist in the fields of early America, women and gender, and early southern history, she is the author or editor of eight books and many articles. Kierner is an OAH Distinguished Lecturer and past president of the Southern Association for Women Historians (SAWH), and she has served on several editorial boards. Her research has received support from the American Historical Association, the Virginia Historical Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the American Antiquarian Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. About Our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

In 1784, Revolutionary War veteran Samuel Shaw set sail on the Empress of China destined for the city of Canton, or Guangzhou, in southern China. Shaw was a Boston native who served under Major General Henry Knox during the War for Independence. He also became one of the founding members of the Society of the Cincinnati, a hereditary, and at times controversial, organization made up of American and French officers who served in the Continental Army during the war. George Washington served as the society’s president from 1783 to 1799. Shaw went to China acting on behalf of some American businessmen interested in tea, silk, and other commodities, but he also carried with him the insignia of the Society of the Cincinnati with the intent of having the design painted on porcelain. His trip resulted in a magnificent 302-piece dinner and tea service later purchased by George Washington. On today’s episode, ceramics expert Ron Fuchs walks us through the remarkable story behind this porcelain collection. Fuchs is the Curator of Ceramics and the Manger of the Reeves Center at Washington and Lee University, and as you'll hear, ceramics open unexpected windows into global and American history.  About Our Guest: Ron Fuchs is the Curator of Ceramics and Manager of the Reeves Center at Washington and Lee University. A former Assistant Curator of Ceramics for the Leo and Doris Hodroff Collection at Winterthur, Fuchs received his bachelor's degree from the College of William & Mary and his master's degree from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture at the University of Delaware. He is currently chairman of the board of directors of the American Ceramic Circle.  About Our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

Like many folks around the country, you might have spent the last three evenings watching Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Washington documentary series on the History Channel. Documentaries are a form of public history, which we might define loosely as making historical knowledge available and accessible for the public’s benefit. At Mount Vernon, we think about how to do this work a great deal. How can we create frameworks for public understanding of the past that balances expertise with accessibility? On today’s episode, Jeanette Patrick discusses her efforts to make the Washingtons, Mount Vernon, and their respective histories engaging for the public. Patrick is Mount Vernon’s Digital Researcher and Writer, which is another way of saying “public historian,” and she is responsible for a goodly portion of the historical content you’ll find on our websites. You’ll hear Patrick describe some of the ways that Mount Vernon decides which public history projects to pursue, and how she became a public historian in the first place. About Our Guest: Jeanette Patrick is Mount Vernon's Digital Researcher and Writer. Among her many responsibilities, she serves as Associate Editor of the Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington.  He holds an MA in Public History from James Madison University. She is a former Program Manager at the National Women's History Museum in Washington, D.C. About Our Host:  Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

When the British defeated the French and their allies in the Seven Years’ War, they acquired vast new territories that expanded British America. Britain’s North America Empire grew to include New Brunswick in Canada, Florida on the southern mainland, and Caribbean Islands like Dominica, among many other places. How would the British meld these spaces – spaces that were religiously and ethnically diverse, characterized by both free and enslaved labor, and fraught with tension between indigenous peoples and white settlers – into a coherent empire? Well, first they had to map them. In the decade before the American Revolution, the British government embarked on a monumental effort to create new, high-resolution maps that would help it forge a new imperial landscape. On today’s episode, Dr. Max Edelson joins us to explain how a cadre of British military engineers, surveyors, and diplomats produced maps that sought to realize a vision of empire that never came to be. Dr. Edelson is a historian of British America at the University of Virginia, and the author of the recent book, The New Map of Empire: How Britain Imagined America Before Independence.  Edelson and host Jim Ambuske discuss a number of maps in this episode, including: Maps in The New Map of Empire: Mapscholar.org/empire Herman Moll, A new and exact map of the dominions of the King of Great Britain on ye continent of North America, containing Newfoundland, New Scotland, New England, New York, New Jersey, Pensilvania, Maryland, Virginia and Carolina (1715) The Catawba Map [Map of the several nations of Indians to the Northwest of South Carolina] [c. 1724] Samuel Holland, A map of the island of St. John in the Gulf of St. Laurence divided into counties & parishes and the lots as granted by government, (1776). About Our Guest:  S. Max Edelson studies the history of British America and the Atlantic world. His research examines space, place, and culture in colonial North America and the Caribbean. His first book, Plantation Enterprise in Colonial South Carolina (Harvard, 2006) examines the relationship between planters and environment in South Carolina as the key to understanding this repressive, prosperous society and its distinctive economic culture His second book, The New Map of Empire: How Britain Imagined America Before Independence (Harvard, 2017), describes how Britain used maps and geographic knowledge to reform its American empire in the eighteenth century. About Our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

The modern biography as we know it dates to the eighteenth century when Scottish author and lawyer James Boswell published The Life of Samuel Johnson. Boswell produced an account of the rascally Englishman, a friend of his for more than twenty years, that became a kind of template that future biographers have followed. We've all read our fair share of biographies, especially presidential biographies, to know that they follow a similar structure. This is especially true of biographies of the American Revolutionary generation. So how can we shake up this genre? And perhaps more importantly, how can we shake up biographies of George Washington, a man who seems at times opaque and beyond reproach? On today’s episode, historian Alexis Coe helps us re-imagine what a biography can be so that we can better understand George Washington and the world around him. Coe is the author of the new book, You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, and if the title is any hint of what’s between the covers, this isn’t your father’s standard Washington biography. About Our Guest: Alexis Taines Coe is an historian. She is the author of the narrative history book, Alice+Freda Forever, and is a consultant on the movie adaptation. Her second book, You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, was published by Viking (Penguin Random House) on February 4, 2020. Alexis is a consulting producer on the Doris Kearns Goodwin's three part George Washington series (February 2020) on the History Channel. She is the host of "No Man's Land" from The Wing/Pineapple and co-hosted "Presidents Are People Too!" from Audible. Alexis curated the ACLU'S 100 exhibition and was the assistant curator of the NYPL's centennial exhibition in Bryant Park. She has appeared on CNN, the History Channel, C-SPAN, and CBS, and lectured at Columbia, West Point, Georgetown, Sarah Lawrence, NYU, the New School, the University of San Francisco, and many others. She has given talks sponsored by Hulu, Chanel, and Madewell. About Our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

In May 1796, Ona Judge, Martha Washington’s enslaved maidservant, freed herself by walking out of the Washington’s Philadelphia home. She had learned that Martha intended to give her away as a wedding present to Elizabeth Parke Custis, her eldest granddaughter. Judge quietly slipped out of the house one evening, boarded a ship, and fled to New Hampshire. She lived there for the rest of her life. Despite their best efforts, the Washingtons were never able to recapture her. On today’s episode, Ona Judge tells her own story. Library Research Fellow Sheila Arnold joins Jim Ambuske in character as Ona Judge to give voice to her life. Arnold is a historic character interpreter who performs as many historical figures, including Ona Judge and Madame CJ Walker, an African American entrepreneur and businesswoman who was one of the wealthiest self-made women in early 20th century America. During the first half of today’s show, Ambuske interviews Arnold as Ona Judge, as she might have been in the last years of her life. He then talks to Arnold herself about historic character interpretation and the powerful ways that performing as a formerly enslaved person can build bridges between communities. About Our Guest: Sheila Arnold currently resides in Hampton, VA. She is a Professional Storyteller, Character Interpreter and Teaching Artist. Through her company, History’s Alive!, Sheila has provided storytelling programs, historic character presentations, Christian monologues, dramatic/creative writing workshops, professional development for educators and inspirational/motivational speeches at schools, churches, libraries, professional organizations and museums, in 41 states since 2003. About Our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.