Leadership and Legacy: Conversations at the George Washington Presidential Library

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson criticized George III for "Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us" in the years before the American Revolution. To hear Jefferson tell it, quartered troops had long been a problem in early America. In this episode, Dr. John McCurdy of Eastern Michigan University reveals how the history of accommodating troops in North America is more complicated than you might think. Far from being an objectionable practice that motivated Americans to revolt against the British, colonists accepted that quartering soldiers was a necessary and even welcome event under certain conditions. McCurdy, who is the author of the new book, Quarters: The Accommodation of the British Army and the Coming of the American Revolution, will reshape what you know about the relationship between soldiers, civilians, and space in the era of the American Revolution.  About our Guest: John McCurdy, Ph.D. specializes in colonial and Revolutionary America, gender and LGBTQ history, and the Atlantic world. His research examines the connections between social and political history in eighteenth-century North America. He is the author of Citizen Bachelors: Manhood and the Creation of the United States, which examines how ideas about marital status in the colonial era gave rise to American citizenship. His most recent book, Quarters: The Accommodation of the British Army and the Coming of the American Revolution, explores how debates over military power shaped notions of place in Revolutionary America. 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.

How has technology changed the way that historians and educators tell stories about the past? What does it mean to do "digital history" and how can one get started?  On today's episode, Dr. Loren Moulds of the University of Virginia Law Library sits down with Jim Ambuske to explore how technology is enhancing our ability to interpret the past. A historian of 20th century America, Moulds's work on backyard barbecues and federal housing policy shapes the way he thinks about the role technology can play to recover hidden voices from obscure sources. You'll hear about the Law Library's latest projects, including those that deal with early America, and others that reveal some of the darkest moments of the 20th century.  About our Guest: Loren Moulds leads the University of Virginia Law Library's efforts to develop online research tools and to promote, create and preserve its digital collections. Moulds received his bachelor's in English and American studies from Kalamazoo College in 2004 and earned a Ph.D. in History at the University of Virginia. He served as the director of the Project for Technology in History Education at the University of Virginia's Corcoran Department of History as well as the technology coordinator for UVA's Digital Classroom Initiative. 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.

Historians spend a lot of time thinking about audience. Whether speaking at academic meetings, talking with the general public, or teaching students, we consider how we can best communicate our ideas to different groups.  So how do we write the history of Early America for a much younger crowd? In a world full of hungry caterpillars and pigeons eager to drive city buses, how do we communicate the complexity of the past to children? Author David Bruce Smith sits down with Jim Ambuske to discuss his new book, Abigail & John, a portrait of the famous Adams couple from Massachusetts. The inaugural volume in "The Grateful American Book Series," Abigail and John features illustrations by Clarice Smith, David's mother, to tell the story of one of the most important partnerships in American history.  About our Guest: David Bruce Smith is the author of 12 books, and founder of the Grateful American™ Foundation, which is restoring enthusiasm about American history–for kids and adults–through videos, podcasts, and interactive activities. The Grateful American™ Book Prize promotes excellence in adolescent historical fiction and non-fiction that is focused on the United States since the country’s founding. In 2019 he launched The Grateful American Book Series; a series of children’s books about historical couples that were–in actuality–partnerships. 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.

Maps do more than visualize landscapes, identify political borders, or chart rivers and oceans. They show us the many and varied ways that we make sense of the world around us. How then, did Early Americans make sense of their world through maps?  Mapping a Nation: Shaping the Early American Republic offers one answer. It is an exhibit currently on display at the American Philosophical Society (APS) in Philadelphia. Using maps, the tools to make them, and other objects, the exhibition shows "how maps were used to create and extend the physical, political, and ideological boundaries of the new nation while creating and reinforcing structural inequalities in the Early Republic." On this episode, lead curator Dr. Erin Holmes and co-curator Dr. Janine Yorimoto Boldt sit down with Jim Ambuske to discuss how they brought Mapping a Nation to life. You'll also get a sneak peak at Dr. Boldt's next exhibition, Dr. Franklin, Citizen Scientist, which will open at APS in Spring 2020. About Our Guests: Erin Holmes is the Kinder Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Missouri. She is a former Washington Library Fellow. She is also a former Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Curatorial Fellow at the American Philosophical Society where was lead curator for Mapping a Nation: Shaping the Early American Republic. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of South Carolina in 2017 and B.A. in History from the College of William and Mary. Her research compares the evolution of plantation slavery and colonial identity through the built environment in Virginia, South Carolina, and Barbados during the long 18th century. Janine Yorimoto Boldt is the 2018-2020 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the American Philosophical Society. She is lead curator for the 2020 exhibition, Dr. Franklin, Citizen Scientist, and was co-curator of Mapping a Nation: Shaping the Early American Republic. Janine received her PhD in American Studies from William & Mary in 2018. Her current book project investigates the political function and development of portraiture in colonial 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.

The word “impeachment” is in the air these days. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a website to find information about what the Constitution’s framers thought about impeachment or any other Constitutional issue. Well, The Constitutional Sources Project is the place for you. The project, called ConSource for short, is a Washington, D.C.-based initiative to digitize and transcribe the documents that shaped the Federal Constitution, and increase our historical literacy. On today’s episode, you’ll hear from Julie Silverbrook, ConSource’s executive director. Julie is an attorney and she is leading the charge to help us all better understand our constitutional past. If you'd like to support this podcast as well as new research into George Washington and his world, please consider becoming a Mount Vernon Member.  About Our Guest: Julie Silverbrook is Executive Director of The Constitutional Sources Project, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization devoted to increasing understanding, facilitating research, and encouraging discussion of the US Constitution by connecting individuals with the documentary history of its creation, ratification, and amendment. Silverbrook holds a J.D. from the William & Mary Law School, where she received the National Association of Women Lawyers Award and the Thurgood Marshall Award and served as a Senior Articles Editor on the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. 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.

What comes to mind when you think about Congress in the nineteenth century? Perhaps you imagine great orators like Henry Clay or Daniel Webster declaiming on the important issues then facing the republic. And yes, in 1856, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks attacked Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate. But Congress generally was model of solemnity, right? Well, you would be wrong. As Dr. Joanne B. Freeman of Yale University argues in her latest book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, the federal legislature was often a very dangerous place. The peoples’ representatives caned their political opponents, engaged in fisticuffs, and resorted to dueling. And as Freeman finds, these violent delights had violent ends. About Our Guest: Joanne B. Freeman, Professor of History, specializes in the politics and political culture of the revolutionary and early national periods of American History.  She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Virginia.  She is the author of Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (Yale University Press), which won the Best Book award from the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic, and her edited volume, Alexander Hamilton: Writings (Library of America) was one of the Atlantic Monthly’s “best books” of 2001.  Her most recent book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, explores physical violence in the U.S. Congress between 1830 and the Civil War, and what it suggests about the institution of Congress, the nature of American sectionalism, the challenges of a young nation’s developing democracy, and the longstanding roots of the Civil War. 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 today’s show, veteran journalist and biographer Harlow Giles Unger talks to Jim Ambuske about revolutionary radical Thomas Paine, one of his predecessors in the newspaper business. He is the author of the new book, Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence. It is the latest in a long line of Unger biographies about the founding generation. Unger reveals a fascinating character in Paine, a man who never met a revolution he didn’t like. He also shares with Ambuske about how his previous life as a journalist informs his approach to biography.  You’ll get as much of a lesson in twentieth-century journalism as you will in eighteenth-century political radicalism. About Our Guest: A former Distinguished Visiting Fellow in American History at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Harlow Giles Unger is a veteran journalist, broadcaster, educator, and historian. He is the author of 27 books, including 10 biographies of the Founding Fathers—among them, Patrick Henry (Lion of Liberty); James Monroe (The Last Founding Father); the award winning Lafayette; and The Unexpected George Washington: His Private Life. Mr. Unger is a graduate of Yale University and has a Master of Arts from California State University. He spent many years as a foreign correspondent and American Affairs analyst for The New York Herald Tribune Overseas News Service, The Times and The Sunday Times (London), and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and he is a former associate professor of English and journalism. 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.

Imagine you lived in the year 1793. The United States has recently suffered its worst military defeat in its history at the hands of the Miami-Shawnee Confederacy. The French Revolution has turned horrifically violent and France is now at war with most of Europe. And both the British and the French are pressuring the United States to choose a side.  Now imagine that you are one of the American, European, or indigenous leaders whose voices will shape how the U.S. responds to these events. Well, now you can be. On today’s show, Game designer Trey Alsup and Mount Vernon Student Learning Specialist Sadie Troy give you a sneak peak at The Situation Room Experience: Washington's Cabinet. It's a new Live Action Role Playing Game for students, and it's a remarkable way to teach young people about the early history of the United States. The game will debut in the coming months at the Washington Library.   About Our Guests:  Trey Alsup is the founder of Wishcraft Simulations, Inc., a company devoted to writing and designing cinematic educational simulations. Its first project was the Situation Room Experience, now open at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA and the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas, TX. Wishcraft Simulations works with clients to craft custom solutions to each institution's unique set of needs and goals. Upcoming projects include the Pacific Aviation Museum in Hawaii and Mount Vernon in Virginia. Alsup has worked as a Writer/Producer and Editor on projects for Disney Channel, ABC Family, A&E, History and TLC. He received his BA in Film-Cinema-Video Studies at Vassar College and MFA in Cinema-Television from University of Southern California. 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 leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia in 2016 with a focus on Scotland and America in an Age of War and Revolution. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  Ambuske is currently at work on a book entitled Emigration and Empire: America and Scotland in the Revolutionary Era, 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 this episode of Conversations at the Washington Library, Samantha Snyder speaks to Jim Ambuske about the life of Elizabeth Willing Powel. Powel was a prominent Philadelphian who became close to the Washington family. Although her loyalties were unclear in the early years of the American War for Independence, she eventually embraced the Revolution. Powel was at the center of Philadelphia politics, but her influence reached beyond the city to the banks of the Potomac and places further afield. In an era in which women could not vote or hold elected office, Powel was a power broker and king maker in Early American society.  About Our Guest: Samantha Snyder is the Reference Librarian at the Washington Library. She is responsible for developing the library's general collections and electronic resources, as well as managing all reference inquiries. She is currently at work on a biography of the life of Elizabeth Willing Powel.  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.

You may know him as Robert E. Lee’s father, but Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee was so much more. Born into a Virginia dynasty, the man who would become one of George Washington’s protégés came of age with the American Revolution itself. Lee was a graduate of Princeton University, a cavalry commander in the war’s brutal southern theater, and he later served two terms as Virginia’s governor. He was a dashing figure who romanticized the ancient world and aspired to be one of the new nation’s great slave-holding planters. But death and despair undercut the life that Lee imagined for himself. On today’s program, Ryan Cole joins us to discuss Lee’s tragic story. Cole is a journalist and former member of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. He is the author of the new book, Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero. About our Guest: Ryan Cole, a former assistant to Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and speechwriter at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, holds degrees in history and journalism from Indiana University. He has written extensively about American history and literature for the Wall Street Journal, National Review, the New Criterion, Civil War Times, the American Interest, and the Indianapolis Star. Additionally, he has written for Indiana University and the Lumina Foundation, and he served on the staff of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. 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.