Leadership and Legacy: Conversations at the George Washington Presidential Library

Summer has arrived and with it the end of Season 4 of Conversations at the Washington Library.  But don't despair! While we're busy recording new episodes for Season 5, we'll keep the conversation going by bringing you the audio version of recent and upcoming Washington Library Live Stream Digital Book Talks.  In fact, for today’s episode, we bring you Dr. Kevin Butterfield’s recent chat with Dr. Mary Beth Norton about her new book, 1774: The Long Year of Revolution. Norton is Mary Donlon Alger Professor Emerita at Cornell University. For over 40 years, she has been one of the leading scholars of the Revolutionary era, with books on American Loyalists, women and gender, and witchcraft. As with all live streams, you might hear an audio glitch here and there. If you’d rather watch the video version, complete with the images Norton and Butterfield discuss, check it out at www.mountvernon.org/gwdigitaltalks Season 5 of Conversations will begin rolling out in mid-August. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this program. About Our Guest: Mary Beth Norton is an historian, specializing in America before 1800. She is a recipient of the Ambassador Book Award in American Studies for In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities, US & Canada and was a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize for History (1997). She has received four honorary degrees and has held fellowships from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim, Mellon, and Starr Foundations, as well as from Princeton University and the Huntington Library. She has been elected a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. She served as Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions in the University of Cambridge in 2005-06. She is Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History emerita at the Department of History at Cornell University. Norton is a former president of the American Historical Association. 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).

During the American Revolution, the Chesapeake Bay was a pirate’s nest. The men who plied the Bay’s waters had shifting loyalties, competing interests, and a keen sense of how to use the law to legitimize their actions. In fact, they are part of a much richer history of piracy in the Bay. From the seventeenth through the nineteenth century, pirates were a constant feature of Chesapeake society. They connected the Bay and its communities with the wider Atlantic world, and even to the Indian Ocean. And in later years, they battled local authorities for control of the Chesapeake’s lucrative oyster trade. On today's episode, we're pleased to bring you the audio version of Jim Ambuske's live stream conversation with Dr. Jamie L. H. Goodall, Staff Historian for the US Army’s Center of Military History.  Goodall is the author of the new book, Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars. About Our Guest: Jamie L. H. Goodall, Ph.D. is Staff Historian at the Center of Military History, US Army, in Washington, D.C. She received her B.A. in Archaeology and M.A. in Public History-Museum Studies from Appalachian State University (Boone, North Carolina) in 2008 and 2010 respectively.  She was awarded  her PhD from The Ohio State in May 2016. She is a former Assistant Professor of History at Stevenson University in Baltimore, Maryland. Goodall is the author of Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars (The History Press, 2020). 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.

This Friday marks the anniversary of Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the moment on June 19, 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas learned they were freed by Emancipation Proclamation and the Confederacy’s defeat in the Civil War. It is also known as Freedom Day or Liberation Day. To celebrate,  Brenda Parker, Mount Vernon Character Interpreter & African American Interpretation & Special Projects Coordinator, will perform Freedom Skies, a special Live Stream event on Juneteenth focused on the experiences of four individuals at Mount Vernon on Manumission Day—January 1, 1801—when Martha Washington freed the late George Washington’s enslaved people. You can find more information by going to mountvernon.org/livestream On today's show, Associate Curator Jessie MacLeod returns to Conversations to update us on recent research on slavery at Mount Vernon. MacLeod is the lead curator of Lives Bound Together, an exhibit that debuted in 2016. It tells the story of the enslaved community on the estate during George Washington’s life. As Juneteenth approaches, we wanted to learn more about the research that inspired this exhibit, how MacLeod and her team put it together, and as importantly, the discoveries that have been made since its installation and what new questions we are pursuing that can help us better understand how the African American community at Mount Vernon navigated slavery and freedom in the nineteenth century. About Our Guest: Jessie MacLeod is an Associate Curator at Mount Vernon, where she has worked since 2012. She was the lead curator for the landmark exhibition Lives Bound Together: Slavery at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and a contributor to the accompanying publication. She is also responsible for developing special exhibits across the estate, managing Mount Vernon’s collection of historic prints, and researching the Mansion’s 18th-century furnishings. 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 March 1797, newly-inaugurated president John Adams thought he detected a glint of joy in George Washington’s eyes as the aging Virginian stepped off the world stage. Adams told his wife Abigail it was as if Washington was thinking, “I am fairly out and you fairly in! see which of Us will be happiest.” The first president had grown tired of the partisan rancor that plagued his second term and longed to sit under his own vine and fig tree at Mount Vernon in peace. But Washington’s vision of a tranquil retirement was not to be. In the last few years of his life, European turmoil threatened American domestic security, his own finances were in shambles, and the fate of the enslaved community at Mount Vernon, and indeed enslaved Americans general, began to weigh heavily on Washington’s mind. Many biographers treat Washington’s post-presidency years as a kind of coda to his life, as space that needs to be filled in order to get to the dramatic story of his death. But for Jonathon Horn, those final years are fertile ground for understanding the United States in its infancy, what it meant for a republic to have an ex-president, and Washington’s own struggle to be one. On today’s show, Horn joins Jim Ambuske via Zoom to discuss his new book, Washington’s End: The Final Years and the Forgotten Struggle.  About Our Guest:  Jonathan Horn is an author and former White House presidential speechwriter whose Robert E. Lee biography, The Man Who Would Not Be Washington, was a Washington Post bestseller. In February 2020, Scribner published Jonathan's new book, Washington's End, the forgotten story of the final years of America's Founding Father.  He has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and PBS NewsHour. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times Disunion series, The Daily Beast, CNN.com, Politico Magazine, The Weekly Standard, and other outlets. During his time at the White House, Jonathan served as a speechwriter and special assistant to President George W. Bush. A graduate of Yale University, Jonathan now lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife, daughters, and dog. 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.

Note: This episode originally aired on January 30, 2020. 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.

Virginia is a landscape shaped by slavery and the enslaved communities who labored in bondage on plantations like Mount Vernon, Monticello, and the smaller farms that surrounded these large estates. But in the eighteenth century, Virginia, New York, South Carolina, and other mainland colonies with sizable enslaved populations paled in comparison to the importance, profitably, and human complexity of the Island of Jamaica. Jamaica was the crown jewel of the British Empire in this period. It was arguably the most important colony in British America, so much so that during the American Revolution, British authorities worried far more about the potential loss of Britain’s Caribbean islands, than they did the rebelling thirteen on the mainland. And as much as the British ruling class feared French or Spanish threats to Jamaica, they also feared revolts from the enslaved population, who to them was an internal enemy. Indeed, in April 1760, enslaved men and women in St. Mary’s Parish rose up against their oppressors, the beginning of an event we often referred to as “Tacky’s War” or “Tacky’s Revolt,” taking its name from one of the men who led it. On today's episode, we're pleased to bring you the audio version of Jim Ambuske's recent live stream conversation with Harvard historian Vincent Brown. Brown is the author of the new book, Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War. Historians have been writing about Tacky's Revolt almost since the moment it occurred, but Brown’s work compels us to see the rebellion as a war within a series of wars in the Atlantic world. It will help you rethink the map of eighteenth-century slavery. About our Guest: Vincent Brown is Charles Warren Professor of American History and Professor of African and African American Studies.  He directs the History Design Studio and teaches courses in Atlantic history, African diaspora studies, and the history of slavery in the Americas. Brown is the author of The Reaper's Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery (Harvard University Press, 2008), producer of Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness, an audiovisual documentary broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens, and is most recently the author of Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War (Belknap 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.

In 1812, Pennsylvania state legislators contemplated something that most Americans would now find completely unimaginable: demolishing Independence Hall in Philadelphia, converting the site to a series of building lots, and using the proceeds to fund construction of a new statehouse in Harrisburg. Fortunately, Philly’s city leaders pushed back against state officials and preserved this historic landmark for future generations, allowing visitors to commune with the ghosts of the Founding Generation who had taken a “leap in the dark” toward independence and later designed the new Constitution. But saving Independence Hall, and indeed any historic structure, wasn’t just about defending the past; it was also about defining the future. On today’s episode, Whitney Martinko joins Jim Ambuske to discuss why Americans in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries battled over the preservation of historic sites and how capitalism shaped the choices and opportunities available to them. Martinko is an Associate Professor of history at Villanova University, and the author of the new book, Historic Real Estate: Market Morality and the Politics of Preservation in the Early United States. What gets saved and what gets destroyed is a lot more complicated than you might think. About Our Guest: Whitney Martinko is an associate professor of History at Villanova University. She is a historian of the early United States with expertise in urban and environmental history, material and visual culture, and histories of capitalism. Her research examines how people have defined the value of historic places and objects—in the past and today. Martinko was raised in Chillicothe, Ohio, and earned degrees in History from Harvard College (BA) and the University of Virginia (MA, PhD). She currently lives in West Philadelphia. 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 November 1800, President John Adams composed a letter to his wife, Abigail, just after he moved into the new White House. He concluded his letter to his “dearest friend” this way: “I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.” As the quote suggests, God was an ever present force in the life of John Adams and his family, and while they hoped that providence would smile on the United States, they lived in a republic committed to religious freedom and increasingly the separation of church and state. How did religion help the Adams Family to make sense of their American world? And how did that American world change their religious beliefs? On today's episode, we're pleased to bring you the audio version of Jim Ambuske's recent live stream conversation with Dr. Sara Georgini, Series Editor of the Papers of John Adams at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and author of the new book Household Gods: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family. About Our Guest: Sara Georgini, Ph.D., is the Series Editor for The Papers of John Adams, part of The Adams Papers project at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and author of Household Gods: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family (Oxford University Press, 2018). Her research focuses on early American thought, culture, and religion. She is co-founder and contributor to The Junto and the Society for U.S. Intellectual History blogs. Georgini writes about American history, thought, and culture for Smithsonian and CNN. 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 evening of March 5, 1770, Captain Thomas Preston and a small contingent of British Redcoats under his command fired into a crowd of civilians massing on King Street in Boston, killing several people. Many of us are familiar with Paul Revere’s famous engraving of what he called “the Bloody Massacre,” what we now know as “the Boston Massacre.” But Revere’s depiction of the incident obscures much more than it reveals about the thousands of connections between Bostonians and the British Army in the years before the American Revolution. On today's episode, we're pleased to bring you the audio version of Jim Ambuske's recent live stream conversation with Dr. Serena Zabin, professor of history at Carleton College. Zabin is the author of the new book, The Boston Massacre: A Family History. About Our Guest: Serena Zabin is a professor of early America and director of the program in American Studies at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. She received degrees from Bowdoin College, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Professor Zabin’s newest work, The Boston Massacre: A Family History, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in February 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.

In December 1799, George Washington died after a short illness. His body and his legacy quickly became fodder for nineteenth century Americans – free and enslaved – who were struggling to make sense of what it meant to be an American as well as the nation’s identity. Americans across the divide used Washington and his memory to advance various political and economic interests. Some, like Federalists, yoked their political fortunes and their belief in a strong central government to Washington’s legacy, much to the abhorrence of Jeffersonian Republicans, who championed the yeoman farmer and a smaller federal state. Enslaved people at Mount Vernon who never knew Washington in life used their fictive attachment to him to sell goods and services to the hundreds of Americans who made a civic pilgrimage to the Virginia plantation each year. And all the while, Washington’s heirs dealt with a constant stream of visitors, trying to balance their private property interests against the idea that Washington was the “property of the nation.” On today’s episode, Matthew Costello joins Jim Ambuske to discuss his aptly titled book, Property of the Nation: George Washington’s Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President. About Our Guest:  Matthew Costello is Vice President of the David M. Rubenstein National Center for White House History at the White House Historical Association. He received his Ph.D. in history from Marquette University. Costello has published articles in The Journal of History and Cultures, Essays in History, The Dome, and White House History. His book, The Property of the Nation: George Washington’s Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President was published by University Press of Kansas in fall 2019. 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.