Leadership and Legacy: Conversations at the George Washington Presidential Library

Conversations at the Washington Library kicks off Season 5 by exploring the life of a radical populist who never met a revolution he didn’t like. Almost unbelievably, Herman Husband participated in some of the most significant events in eighteenth-century America: The Great Awakening; the North Carolina Regulation Movement; The American Revolution; and the Whiskey Rebellion. Husband’s story illuminates the major religious, political, and economic upheavals that reshaped North America in this period, and we might just see some parallels between his time and our own. On today’s show, Dr. Bruce Stewart, a professor of history at Appalachian State University, joins Jim Ambuske to unpack Husband’s life. He is the author of the new book, Redemption from Tyranny: Herman Husband’s American Revolution, published in 2020 by the University of Virginia Press. It’s a compelling story of early America told through the eyes of a man for whom revolutions never went far enough. About Our Guest:  Bruce Stewart, Ph.D. is Professor of History at Appalachian State University. He earned his M.A. in History from Western Carolina University and his Ph.D. in History from the University of Georgia. His areas of study are United States History and Appalachian History. He is the author of four books, including his latest, Redemption from Tyranny: Herman Husband's American Revolution (UVA Press, 2020).  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.

This episode originally aired in September 2019. 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.

The Syphax Family has deep historic ties to Mount Vernon and other sites of enslavement in Virginia. In 1821, Charles Syphax, an enslaved man at Arlington House in Northern Virginia, married Maria Carter, the daughter of a woman enslaved at Mount Vernon. Charles was the inherited property of George Washington Parke Custis, Martha Washington’s grandson. And there is very strong evidence that the woman that Charles married, Maria, was Custis’s daughter. On today’s episode, you’ll learn more about the fascinating history of the Syphax Family and its connections to Mount Vernon from Steve Hammond. Hammond is a Genealogist, Family Historian, and Syphax descendent who has spent decades reconstructing the Syphax family’s history. He recently joined Brenda Parker, Mount Vernon’s African American Interpretation and Special Projects Coordinator, on a live stream to discuss his family’s story.  We’re happy to bring her conversation with Hammond to the podcast. Be sure to check out the documents Hammond and Parker discuss during the program. About Our Guest: Steve Hammond is a descendent of the Syphax Family. He retired from the United States Department of Interior after many years of service. A genealogist and family historian, Hammond has spent decades researching, writing, and lecturing about the Syphax Family and their place in Virginia history.  About Our Guest Host: Brenda Parker is Mount Vernon's African American Interpretation and Special Projects Coordinator. Trained in performative arts, Parker interprets some of the women enslaved at Mount Vernon during George Washington's era, including Caroline Branham.

It’s easy to think of slave holding as a male profession. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and countless other men are often the names that come to mind when we think about early Americans who held other people in bondage. But white women, especially in the American South, were equally invested in slavery as owners in human property. A new generation of historians is helping us to understand why and how. One such scholar is Dr. Stephanie Jones-Rogers of the University California-Berkeley. She is the author of the new book, They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South, which recently won the LA Times Book Prize in History and the Best Book Award from the Society for Historians of the Early Republic. On today’s episode, we bring you the audio version of Library Executive Director Dr. Kevin Butterfield’s recent live stream interview with Dr. Jones-Rogers. It’s an illuminating look at an underexplored topic that were only just beginning to better understand. About Our Guest: Stephanie Jones-Rogers is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley where she specializes in African-American history, the history of American slavery, and women’s and gender history. She is the author of the book They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South (Yale University Press, 2019), which won the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic’s 2020 Best Book Prize and the Organization of American Historians’ 2020 Merle Curti Prize for the best book in American social history. She is also the first African-American and the third woman to win the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History since the award’s inception in 1980. A former faculty member at the University of Iowa, Jones-Rogers received her Ph.D. in African-American History from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in 2012. About Our Guest Host: Kevin C. Butterfield is the  Executive Director of the Washington Library. He comes to Mount Vernon from the University of Oklahoma, where he served as the Director of the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage and Constitutional Studies Program, holding an appointment as the Wick Cary Professor and Associate Professor of Classics and Letters. He is the author of The Making of Tocqueville's America: Law and Association in the Early United States (Chicago, 2015).

On today's show, we bring you the audio from our annual Martha Washington Lecture. This year's topic was Mary Ball Washington, George's mother, and the recent work by historians to rethink what we know about her life. Dr. Karin Wulf, executive director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, served as our guest moderator for this event. She was joined on the virtual stage by Martha Saxon, a  2020 George Washington Book Prize Finalist for her work, The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington (2019); Craig Shirley, author of Mary Ball Washington: The Untold Story of George Washington’s Mother (2019); and Charlene Boyer Lewis, author of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte: An American Aristocrat in the Early Republic (2014). About Our Guests: Martha Saxton is Professor of History and Sexuality, Women's and Gender Studies, and Elizabeth W. Bruss Reader, Emerita at Amherst College. In addition to The Widow Washington, Saxton is the author of Being Good: Women's Moral Values in Early America (2003), among numerous other publications.  Craig Shirley is a veteran political advisor with a long career in service to the Republican Party. He is also the author of a number of works on American history, including December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World (2011), and Citizen Newt: The Making of a Reagan Conservative (2017). Charlene M. Boyer Lewis is a professor of history and the director of the American studies program at Kalamazoo College. She specializes in women's history, southern history, and American cultural and social history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She is the author of Ladies and Gentlemen on Display: Planter Society at the Virginia Springs, 1790–1860 (2001) and is at work on a biography of Peggy Shippen Arnold.  About Our Guest Moderator: Karin Wulf is the director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, which has been publishing the William and Mary Quarterly, the leading journal in early American scholarship, and books with the University of North Carolina Press, since 1943. She is also Professor of History at the College of William & Mary, and co-chair the College’s Neurodiversity Working Group. Her scholarship focuses on women, gender and family in the early modern British Atlantic.

Season 5 of the podcast drops in a few weeks. In the meantime, we're pleased to offer you Library Executive Director Kevin Butterfield’s recent live stream conversation with Edward J. Larson. Larson is the author of many books, including the subject of today's show, Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership. We need your help to make Season 5 of Conversations the best one yet. Please take a moment to complete our listener survey that will help shape the future of the show. You’ll find a link to the survey on the podcast’s homepage at www.mountvernon.org/podcast. By filling it out, you’ll not only help us help you, you’ll also be entered to win a free book. Thanks so much in advance, and be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. About Our Guest: Ed Larson holds the Hugh and Hazel Darling Chair in Law and is University Professor of History at Pepperdine University. Originally from Ohio with a PhD in the history of science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and law degree from Harvard, Larson has lectured on all seven continents and taught at Stanford Law School, University of Melbourne, Leiden University, and the University of Georgia, where he chaired the History Department. Prior to become a professor, Larson practiced law in Seattle and served as counsel for the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC. He is the author of numerous books, including Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership (2020). About Our Guest Host: Kevin C. Butterfield is the  Executive Director of the Washington Library. He comes to Mount Vernon from the University of Oklahoma, where he served as the Director of the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage and Constitutional Studies Program, holding an appointment as the Wick Cary Professor and Associate Professor of Classics and Letters. He is the author of The Making of Tocqueville's America: Law and Association in the Early United States (Chicago, 2015).

Season 5 of Conversations at the Washington Library is just around the corner. Until then, we're happy to bring you Jim Ambuske's recent live stream chat with Dr. Jessica Lowe of the University of Virginia School of Law.  Long-time fans of the podcast will recognize Dr. Lowe’s name from an episode Ambuske recorded with her in 2019. Their live stream conversation  gave them a chance to go much deeper into the horrid crime at the heart of Lowe's book, Murder in the Shenandoah: Making Law Sovereign in Revolution Virginia, and what it means for our own modern struggle for justice and equality. And despite events of the past few months and recent weeks, Dr. Lowe gives us a reason to be hopeful in the end. About Our Guest: Jessica Lowe, Ph.D. specializes in 18th- and 19th-century American legal history. She received her J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School, and clerked in the District of Connecticut and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Lowe also practiced litigation and appellate law at Jones Day in Washington, D.C., where she worked on a number of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. She is admitted to practice in Virginia and the District of Columbia. She received her Ph.D. in American history from Princeton University. 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.

While work continues on the podcast's upcoming Season 5, we’re pleased to offer you another summer interlude. For today’s show, we bring you the audio version of Jim Ambuske's recent live stream chat with Professors Zara Anishanslin and Arthur Burns about the Georgian Papers Programme. Now, most of you probably know that some Americans had a little -  shall we say – disagreement with King George III two centuries ago. Something about taxation, tea, and tyranny. But did you know that researchers, librarians, and digital humanists on both sides of the pond are busy digitizing and interpreting the papers of the Georgian Monarchs, their families, and the members of the royal household from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? What can we learn about early America, and especially the American revolution, from these documents? Stay tuned to find out. As always, if you’d like to see the images associated with this live stream, consider watching the video version by going to www.mountvernon.org/gwdigitaltalks. About Our Guests: Zara Anishanslin is Associate Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware.  She is the author of Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World. She was the 2018 Mount Vernon Georgian Papers Programme Fellow, working at the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, the Washington Library, and King’s College London on her new project on the American Revolution, London Patriots. Arthur Burns is Professor of Modern British History at King’s College London. He is currently academic director of the Georgian Papers Programme. Primarily a historian of later Hanoverian and Victorian Britain, Burns engages with the history of the Church of England over a much longer period, notably through his pioneering involvement in digital humanities. He co-founded the Boydell and Brewer monograph series Studies in Modern British Religious History, which has now published more than 35 volumes on this theme. 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.  He is the co-author with Randall Flaherty of "Reading Law in the Early Republic: Legal Education in the Age of Jefferson," in The Founding of Thomas Jefferson's University ed. by John A. Rogasta, Peter S. Onuf, and Andrew O'Shaughnessy (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019). 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.

Week 3 of our summer hiatus is another opportunity to bring you a fascinating look at early America courtesy of some of our recent live stream programming. On today’s show, we bring you Library Executive Director Kevin Butterfield’s conversation with 2019 George Washington Book Prize winner, Dr. Colin Calloway. Calloway is 1943 Professor of History and Professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth University. He won last year’s Book prize for his latest work, The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Peoples, and the Birth of the Nation. It’s the definitive work on the relationship between Washington and indigenous peoples in the eighteenth century, and it illuminates the complicated, culturally diverse, and often contentious world in which they all lived. About Our Guest: Colin Calloway is John Kimball, Jr. 1943 Professor of History and Professor of Native American Studies. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Leeds in England in 1978. After moving to the United States, he taught high school in Springfield, Vermont, served for two years as associate director and editor of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and taught for seven years at the University of Wyoming. He has been associated with Dartmouth since 1990 when he first came as a visiting professor. He became a permanent member of the faculty in 1995. About Our Guest Host: Kevin C. Butterfield is the  Executive Director of the Washington Library. He comes to Mount Vernon from the University of Oklahoma, where he served as the Director of the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage and Constitutional Studies Program, holding an appointment as the Wick Cary Professor and Associate Professor of Classics and Letters. He is the author of The Making of Tocqueville's America: Law and Association in the Early United States (Chicago, 2015).

We're excited to bring you Season 5 of Conversations at the Washington Library in a few short weeks. But in the meantime we’ll keep you entertained as promised. Today, we bring you the audio version of Executive Director Kevin Butterfield’s recent live stream with Dr. T.H. Breen. Breen is the William Smith Mason Professor of History emeritus at Northwestern University. He has been a leading scholar of colonial America and the Revolution for the past several decades, and long has been interested in the ordinary, everyday folk who inhabited this world. Breen’s latest book, The Will of the People: The Revolutionary Birth of America, is the subject of today’s talk. We were fortunate to have Breen as the third and final participant in our Michelle Smith Lecture series. Just a reminder that if you’d like to see the images that Breen and Butterfield discuss over the course of their conversation, head on over to mountvernon.org/gwdigitaltalks to watch the full video. About Our Host: T.H. Breen, William Smith Mason Professor of American History, is an Early American historian interested in the history of political thought, material culture, and cultural anthropology. He is the author of numerous books, including Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (Oxford, 2004); American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People (Hill & Wang, 2010); George Washington’s Journey: The President Forges a New Nation (Simon and Schuster: January, 2016). About Our Guest Host: Kevin C. Butterfield is the  Executive Director of the Washington Library. He comes to Mount Vernon from the University of Oklahoma, where he served as the Director of the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage and Constitutional Studies Program, holding an appointment as the Wick Cary Professor and Associate Professor of Classics and Letters. He is the author of The Making of Tocqueville's America: Law and Association in the Early United States (Chicago, 2015).