Leadership and Legacy: Conversations at the George Washington Presidential Library

The Adams Family is one of the more prominent families in American history. They were at the center of the American Revolution, they helped create a new republic, shaped the young nation’s foreign policy, and later were central to the development of the history profession. Fortunately, we know much about their lives because of the countless letters and diaries they’ve left us. And it is up to a team of editors at the Massachusetts Historical Society to help us make sense of it all. On today’s show, Dr. Sara Georgini joins Jim Ambuske to talk about what it’s like to edit the Adams Family Papers and the questions they help us answer. Georgini is Series Editor for The Papers of John Adams, and she is also the author of Household Gods: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family, published by Oxford University Press in 2018. We’re joined today by co-host Dr. Anne Fertig, the Washington Library’s Digital Projects Editor.

In 1752, George Washington joined the Masonic Lodge in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was just twenty years old. Despite his early interest in masonry, Washington was not as active in the organization as some might imagine, but Masonic Lodges became important sites of social gathering for men in early America. And while masons and masonic rituals played important roles in the American Revolution and in the early days of the Republic, you won’t find any conspiracy theories here. On today’s show, Mark Tabbert joins Jim Ambusketo discuss his new book, A Deserving Brother: George Washington and Freemasonry, published by the University of Virginia Press in 2022. Tabbert is Director of Archives and Exhibits at The George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia.

When George Washington wrote his final will in the months before he died in December 1799, he named Bushrod Washington as heir to his papers and to Mount Vernon. He took possession of his uncle’s Virginia plantation when Martha Washington passed away in 1802. But Bushrod was not as interested in agriculture as George had been. He was a lawyer who later became an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court, where he became a staunch ally of Chief Justice John Marshall. Yet, like George, Bushrod owned numerous enslaved people and became one of the founding members of the American Colonization Society, an organization dedicated to resettling freed people in Africa. On today’s show, Professor Gerard Magliocca joins Jim Ambuske to discuss his new book, Washington’s Heir: The Life of Justice Bushrod Washington, published by Oxford University Press in 2022. Magliocca is the Samuel R. Rosen Professor at the Robert H. McKinney School of Law at Indiana University.

Why is the way that we remember the past oftentimes different than historical reality? And how can we use public history to inform conversations in the present about events that took place centuries earlier? On today’s episode, Jim Ambuske introduces you to Dr. Anne Fertig, our newest colleague here at the Washington Library, who will help us think through some of these questions. Dr. Fertig is a specialist in eighteenth century literature, historical memory, and women’s history. She’s the founder and co-director of Jane Austen & Co., a lecture series about Jane Austen and her broader world, and she is our new Digital Projects Editor at the Washington Library.

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the British Empire began dismantling the slave system that had helped to build it. Parliament banned the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, and in 1833 the government outlawed slavery itself, accomplishing through legislative action what the United States would later achieve in part by the horrors of civil war. Abolition has long been a cause célèbre in the British imagination, with men like William Wilberforce receiving credit for moving the empire to right a moral wrong. Yet as our guest today argues, there were other, equally powerful motivations beyond morality that fueled British efforts to abolish slavery. On today’s show, Dr. Padraic Scanlan joins Jim Ambuske to discuss his new book, Slave Empire: How Slavery Made Modern Britain. Scanlan is an Assistant Professor of History at the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto.  And as you’ll hear, there was as much money to be made in the abolition of slavery as there was in slavery itself.

In May 1787, George Washington arrived in Philadelphia to attend the Constitutional Convention. One afternoon, as he waited for the other delegates to show up so the convention could begin, Washington accompanied some ladies to a public lecture at the University of Pennsylvania by a woman named Eliza Harriot Barons O’Conner. Eliza Harriot, as she signed her name, had led a transatlantic life steeped in revolutionary ideas. On that May afternoon she argued in favor of the radical notion of Female Genius, the idea that women were intellectually equal to men and deserved both equal opportunity for education and political representation. On today’s show, we dive deeper into Harriot’s story as Dr. Mary Sarah Bilder, who joins Jim Ambuske to discuss her latest book Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution, published by the University of Virginia Press in 2022. Bilder is the Founders Professor of Law at Boston College Law School. And as you’ll learn, Harriot’s performance that day may have inspired the new Constitution’s gender-neutral language.

We're delighted to bring you one of the bonus episodes from our other podcast, Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. In Intertwined Stories, we're featuring extended interviews with some of the expert contributors to the main Intertwined show. Today, you'll hear part of the conversation that Jim Ambuske and Jeanette Patrick had with Ramin Ganeshram about Hercules Posey. Posey was the Washington’s enslaved chef, and for more than 200 years old we didn’t know happened to him after he self-emancipated on George Washington’s birthday - February 22, 1797. But now we do. We hope you enjoy this episode, and to hear more Intertwined Stories, search for your favorite podcast app for Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon or find us at www.georgewashingtonpodcast.com

Hannah Lawrence Schieffelin was an American poet who rhymed about some of the most important issues facing the early United States in the eighteenth century, including the British occupation of New York City during the American Revolution, the debate over the gradual abolition of slavery in the early days of the republic, and the legacy of George Washington. Schieffelin sat at the heart of the New York literary scene in these years, but until recently, most of her manuscript poetry remained undigitized and inaccessible to readers. Thanks to Dr. Kait Tonti and her colleagues at the New York Public Library, now you can read Schieffelin’s poetry, too. Tonti is an expert on early American women's life-writing and poetry. She was also the 2021 Omohundro Institute-Mount Vernon Digital Collections Fellow, which supported the digitization of Schieffelin’s poetry. She joins Jim Ambuske today to talk about Schieffelin’s life and the politics of her poetry, especially her poetical confrontation over slavery and Washington’s reputation with a mysterious opponent who may not be so mysterious after all. View Schieffelin's manuscripts at the New York Public Library here. View Tonti's digital exhibit here.

In eighteenth-century America,  you would’ve had little opportunity for formal schooling or an advanced education. Unless you were among the elite or at least of some means, your chances of attending a local academy or Harvard College weren’t great. But the American Revolution ushered in a new era of education in the United States that paved the way for the educational opportunities we take for granted today. Education became seen as central to the survival of the republic, with local communities, states, and the new federal government all interested in expanding educational opportunities for some Americans, though not as much for others. And in the 1820s, Thomas Jefferson would embark on last great project of his life – the founding of the University of Virginia – which he hoped would preserve the meaning of the Revolution as he understood it. On today’s show, we’re fortunate to have two old chums return to the program to talk about the crucial role of education in early America. Dr. Mark Boonshoft is the Executive Director of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and he is the author of Aristocratic Education and the Making of the American Republic, which was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2020. We’re joined by Dr. Andrew O’Shaughnessy, the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, who recently authored The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind: Thomas Jefferson’s Idea of a University, published by the University of Virginia Press in 2021.

For years after the ratification of the Constitution, Americans debated how the Federal Government and the several states should relate to each other, and work together, to form a more perfect union. The success, if not the survival, of the new republic depended on these governments cooperating on any number of issues, from customs enforcement to Native American policy. But where there was collaboration there was also friction among them over matters like state sovereignty, slavery, and land. Unsurprisingly, many of the same questions about government relations that American leaders like George Washington or Gouvernor Morris faced in the eighteenth century remain evergreen in the twenty-first. On today’s show, Dr. Grace Mallon joins Jim Ambuske to chat about how the federal government and the states did, or did not, get along in the republic’s early days, and how personal relationships among American leaders often meant the difference between policy victories or defeats. Mallon recently received her Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and she is the incoming Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University. She also hosts the "Conventions" podcast on constitutional history for the Quill Project at Pembroke College, Oxford. Look for it where ever fine podcasts are available.  About Our Guest: Grace Mallon received her doctorate in History from Oxford University in 2021. Her dissertation project explored the relationship between the state and federal governments in the early American republic and its effect on policy. She is the incoming Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, and is a 2021-22 Washington Library Fellow. She hosts the 'Conventions' podcast on constitutional history for the Quill Project at Pembroke College, Oxford.