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Conversations at the Washington Library

Conversations at the Washington Library

By George Washington's Mount Vernon

Conversations at the Washington Library is the premier podcast about George Washington and his Early American world.
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NOW AVAILABLE: Inventing the Presidency

Conversations at the Washington LibraryMar 12, 2024

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NOW AVAILABLE: Inventing the Presidency
Mar 12, 202401:49
229. A Final Conversation with Dr. James Ambuske

229. A Final Conversation with Dr. James Ambuske

In this final episode of Conversations at the Washington Library, Drs. Anne Fertig and Alexandra Montgomery bid farewell to former Digital Historian and host, Dr. James Ambuske, through a retrospective of his time and work at the George Washington Podcast Network.

May 08, 202353:44
228. Editing the Adams Family Papers with Dr. Sara Georgini
Nov 28, 202243:20
227. Welcoming a Deserving Brother with Mark Tabbert

227. Welcoming a Deserving Brother with Mark Tabbert

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.
Nov 14, 202225:49
226. Cross-examining Washington's Heir with Prof. Gerard Magliocca

226. Cross-examining Washington's Heir with Prof. Gerard Magliocca

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.
Oct 31, 202242:45
225. Doing Public History with Dr. Anne Fertig

225. Doing Public History with Dr. Anne Fertig

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.

Oct 17, 202227:16
224. Unpacking the Slave Empire with Dr. Padraic Scanlan

224. Unpacking the Slave Empire with Dr. Padraic Scanlan

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.

Jun 24, 202239:49
223. Attending a Lecture on Female Genius with Dr. Mary Sarah Bilder
May 19, 202241:47
Introducing Intertwined Stories: Finding Hercules Posey
Apr 06, 202219:33
222. Winning a "Compleat Victory" at Saratoga with Dr. Kevin Weddle
Mar 25, 202247:43
221. Reading the Political Poetry of Hannah Lawrence Schieffelin with Dr. Kait Tonti
Mar 09, 202255:17
220. Educating Early Americans with Drs. Mark Boonshoft and Andrew O'Shaughnessy

220. Educating Early Americans with Drs. Mark Boonshoft and Andrew O'Shaughnessy

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.
Feb 18, 202201:03:40
219. Negotiating Federal-State Relations with Dr. Grace Mallon

219. Negotiating Federal-State Relations with Dr. Grace Mallon

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.
Feb 02, 202244:05
218. Finding Washington at the Plow with Dr. Bruce Ragsdale

218. Finding Washington at the Plow with Dr. Bruce Ragsdale

In the 1760s, tobacco was one of Virginia’s chief exports. But George Washington turned away from the noxious plant and began dreaming of wheat and a more profitable future. Washington became enamored with new ideas powering the agricultural revolution in Great Britain and set out to implement this new form of husbandry back home at Mount Vernon.
His quest to become a gentleman farmer reshaped Mount Vernon’s landscape and altered the lives of the plantation’s enslaved community, and his own ideas about slavery, forever.
On today’s show, Dr. Bruce Ragsdale joins Jim Ambuske to chat about his new book, Washington at the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery, published by Harvard University Press in 2021.
Ragsdale is the retired Director of the Federal Judicial History Office and he’s one of the leading experts on agriculture in the early republic. And as you’ll hear, Washington the revolutionary farmer had more in common with Farmer George in England, that is King George III, than you might think.
Please take a moment to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast app. It helps other people find us and the new insights our guests bring to the table each episode.
Jan 20, 202244:29
217. Exploring Star Territory with Dr. Gordon Fraser

217. Exploring Star Territory with Dr. Gordon Fraser

In the 18th and 19th centuries, North Americans looked up at the sky in wonder at the cosmos and what lay beyond earth’s atmosphere.
But astronomers like Benjamin Banneker, Georgia surveyors, Cherokee storytellers, and government officials also saw in the stars ways to master space on earth by controlling the heavens above. And print technology became a key way for Americans of all stripes to find ways to understand their own place in the universe and their relationship to each other.
On today’s show, Dr. Gordon Fraser joins Jim Ambuske to discuss his new book, Star Territory: Printing the Universe in Nineteenth-Century America, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2021.
Fraser is a Lecturer and Presidential Fellow in American Studies, University of Manchester in England, and Fraser and Ambuske were joined today by Dr. Alexandra Montgomery as guest co-host, who is heading up the Washington Library’s ARGO initiative.
And yes, they talk about aliens.
Jan 06, 202250:34
216. Digitally Deconstructing the Constitution with Dr. Nicholas Cole

216. Digitally Deconstructing the Constitution with Dr. Nicholas Cole

When delegates assembled in Philadelphia in the Summer of 1787 to write a new Constitution, they spent months in secret writing a document they hoped would form a more perfect Union.
When we talk about the convention, we often talk of the Virginia Plan, the Connecticut Compromise, the 3/5ths clause, and other major decisions that shaped the final document.
What’s harder to see are the long days the delegates spent haggling over numerous proposed amendments, precise words, phrases, and ideas that contorted the constitution into its final form.
It’s a process that helped create many of the political institutions that we too often take for granted these days.
On today’s show, Dr. Nicholas Cole joins Jim Ambuske to chat about using the Quill Project to demystify the past moments that shaped our political and legal futures.
Cole is a Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College at the University of Oxford, where he is the director of the Quill Project, a digital initiative that investigates the historical origins of some of the world’s foundational legal texts.
And as you’ll learn, little moments in the constitutional process can mean a lot.
With this episode, we close the books on 2021. Thanks for joining us this past year, we appreciate the opportunity to be in your ears, and we look forward to seeing you in 2022. Have a safe and happy holiday season.
Dec 23, 202147:03
215. Reading Thomas Paine's Rights of Man with Dr. Frances Chiu
Dec 02, 202126:52
Previewing Episode 1 of Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington's Mount Vernon
Nov 17, 202142:12
Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington's Mount Vernon (Coming November 15, 2021)
Nov 10, 202101:21
214. Weaponizing Settlement in Nova Scotia with Dr. Alexandra Montgomery

214. Weaponizing Settlement in Nova Scotia with Dr. Alexandra Montgomery

Although you might not realize it, in the years before the American Revolution, Nova Scotia was all the rage. People concocted various schemes to settle it, and the British government saw it as one of the keys to its new vision of empire after the Seven Years' War. Nova Scotia has a fascinating, often troubled history. Indigenous peoples and European powers competed for the land, and access to the colony’s lucrative fishing grounds, drawing maps to stake their claims, making war, and in the case of the British, using settlers to box out other competing interests, in a strategy that our guest today calls “weaponized settlement.” On today’s episode, Dr. Alexandra Montgomery joins Jim Ambuske to chat about her research on Nova Scotia as an imperial place, and as a site of land dispossession, in the era of the American Revolution. Montgomery is our Postdoctoral Fellow in the Digital History and Cartography of the American Revolution here at the Washington Library. And in addition to telling us about an exciting new digital mapping project we’re working on these days, you’ll also learn about the donair, a Nova Scotian treat that should be on the top of your bucket list. About Our Guest: Alexandra L. Montgomery holds a PhD in early American history from the University of Pennsylvania. Her work focuses on the role of the state and settler colonialism in the eighteenth century, particularly in the far northeast. Currently, she is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Digital History and Cartography of the American Revolutionary War Era at Mount Vernon, where she is assisting in the creation of a new digital maps portal in collaboration with the Leventhal Map and Education Center.

Nov 04, 202146:31
213. Sailing to Freedom with Dr. Timothy D. Walker

213. Sailing to Freedom with Dr. Timothy D. Walker

In May 1796, an enslaved woman named Ona Judge fled the presidential household in Philadelphia and escaped to freedom on a ship headed for New Hampshire. Judge’s successful flight was one of many such escapes by the sea in the 18th and 19th centuries. Enslaved people boarded ships docked in ports great and small and used coastal water ways and the ocean as highways to freedom. We often learn about the Underground Railroad in school, but what about its aquatic component? 

On today’s episode, Dr. Timothy D. Walker joins Jim Ambuske to discuss his new edited volume, Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad, which was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2021. Walker is a Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and along with the contributors to Sailing to Freedom, Walker guides us towards new horizons in our quest to better understand this history. 

About Our Guest: Dr. Timothy Walker (B.A., Hiram College, 1986; M.A., Ph.D., Boston University, 2001) is a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.  At UMD, he serves as Fulbright Program Advisor (faculty and students); prior posts include Director of Tagus Press and Director of the UMass in Lisbon Study Abroad Program.

Oct 23, 202142:09
212. Recruiting the Hero of Two Worlds with Mike Duncan

212. Recruiting the Hero of Two Worlds with Mike Duncan

To kick off Season 6, we bring you the story of America’s Favorite Fighting Frenchmen.
In 1777, the Marquis de Lafayette sailed from France with a commission as a major general in the Continental Army. Unlike many other European soldiers of fortune, Lafayette paid his own way and had no expectation that he would be placed at the head of American forces.
We best remember Lafayette for his service in the American Revolution, his close relationship with George Washington, and the key to the Bastille that now hangs in the main entrance to Washington’s Mount Vernon.
But Lafayette was more than meets the eye. On today’s show, podcasting legend and author Mike Duncan joins Jim Ambuske to discuss his new book, Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, published by PublicAffairs Books in 2021.
You may know Duncan from his two podcasts, The History of Rome and Revolutions, and in his latest book, he tackles a complex man who was at the center of the Age of Democratic Revolutions.
It’s great to be back with you; we have a great season ahead of us, and we have a brand new segment in which our guests talk about the work that inspires them.
About our Guest:
Mike Duncan is one of the most popular history podcasters in the world and author of the New York Times–bestselling book, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic. His award-winning series, The History of Rome, remains a legendary landmark in the history of podcasting. Duncan’s ongoing series, Revolutions, explores the great political revolutions that have driven the course of modern history. His most recent book is Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution.
Oct 06, 202156:07
211. Revitalizing Myaamia Language and Culture with George Ironstrack (Summer Repeat)

211. Revitalizing Myaamia Language and Culture with George Ironstrack (Summer Repeat)

In the eighteenth century, the Myaamia people inhabited what are now parts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. More commonly known in English as the Miami, the Myaamia figure prominently in the early history of the United States, especially in the 1790s, when war chief Mihšihkinaahkwa (or Little Turtle) co-led an alliance of Miami and Shawnee warriors that defeated successive American armies in the Ohio valley before meeting defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.
In the battle’s wake, through treaty and subterfuge, Americans dispossessed the Myaamia of their lands, removing them first to Kansas in the mid-nineteenth century before final resettlement in Oklahoma not long after. Not only did the Myaamia lose their homelands, their language and culture suffered as well, lapsing into silence as the community fractured and native speakers passed away.
But as George Ironstrack tells us on today’s episode, not all is lost, and through the power of education and a lot of hard work, what was once silenced is now heard again in Myaamia communities from the banks of the Wabash River in Indiana to northeastern Oklahoma.
Ironstrack is a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and the Assistant Director of the Myaamia Center at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio. The Center is a major educational and research institution dedicated to revitalizing Myaamia language and culture, and a leader in using digital technology to explore the indigenous past. Ironstrack spoke to Jim Ambuske about the history of the Myaamia people, and the work that he and his colleagues are doing at the Myaamia Center to awaken a sleeping language.
Be sure to check out the Myaamia Center's many digital resources, including the Miami-Illinois Digital Archive.
About Our Guest:
George Ironstrack is a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and the Assistant Director of the Myaamia Center at Miami University. He has participated in Myaamia language renewal projects as both a student and a teacher since the mid-1990s. Examples of his work can be found on the Myaamia Community Blog:
aacimotaatiiyankwi.org.
Sep 22, 202101:11:14
210. Winning a Consolation Prize with Dr. Abby Mullen (Summer Repeat)

210. Winning a Consolation Prize with Dr. Abby Mullen (Summer Repeat)

Consuls are essential to American foreign relations. Although they may not be as flashy or as powerful as an Ambassador like Thomas Jefferson or John Quincy Adams, they’re often the go-to people when an American gets in trouble abroad or when a trade deal needs to get done.
Consuls operate in cities and towns throughout the world, helping to advance American interests and maintain good relations with their host countries, all while helping you replace your lost passport.
Much has changed about the consular service since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when a consul could earn fees for his services, such as getting you out of a scrape with the local authorities
But as today’s guests demonstrates, consuls were and are the backbone of American diplomacy.
Dr. Abby Mullen joins Jim Ambuske to discuss her work on American consuls in the early Republic and her podcast, Consolation Prize, a show dedicated to telling the stories of these consuls, and the wider world in which they lived.
Mullen is Term Assistant Professor of History at George Mason University where she is also one of the key members of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.
About Our Guest:
Abby Mullen holds a PhD in history from Northeastern University (2017). Her dissertation, "Good Neighbourhood with All: Conflict and Cooperation in the First Barbary War, 1801-1805," investigates how the U.S. Navy forged international connections in the Mediterranean during the First Barbary War.Mullen is the PI on Tropy, a Mellon Foundation-funded software development project. She is also technical lead on All the Appalachian Trails, a project to create an interactive map of the history of the Appalachian Trail over the last 100 years. Mullen teaches digital history courses at George Mason University.
Sep 15, 202150:09
209. Reading Letters by Early American Women with Kathryn Gehred (Summer Repeat)

209. Reading Letters by Early American Women with Kathryn Gehred (Summer Repeat)

If you pull any decent history book off your shelf right now, odds are that it’s filled with quotes from letters, diaries, or account books that help the author tell her story and provide the evidence for her interpretation of the past. It’s almost always the case that the quotation you read in a book is just one snippet of a much longer document. Perhaps, for example, Catharine Greene’s letters to her husband Nathanael offer the reader insight into some aspect of the family business she was running while Nathanael served in the southern theater of the War of Independence. But what about the rest of the document? What about the quiet moments when someone like Martha Washington asks after a family member, describes the state of their own health, or apologizes for a hurried scrawl, the result of the writer trying to catch the next post? And as valuable as collections like George Washington’s papers are, how can we write more nuanced and complete histories of the American past by reading letters by early American women? On today’s show, we welcome Kathryn Gehred, who is tackling that question by exploring the lives of early American women, one letter at a time. Gehred is a Research Editor at The Washington Papers Project based at the University of Virginia, where she is also on the team at the Center for Digital Editing, which is publishing documentary editions of historical manuscript collections online. Gehred is also the host of the new podcast, Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant. On each episode, Gehred and her guests break down a letter written by early American women and put it in context to show what is often obscured by the so-called juicier quotes you might find in your favorite book. Gehred joins Jim Ambuske today to talk about her podcast, how her training as an early American women’s historian, Monticello tour guide, and documentary editor informs her approach to it, and some of the exciting letters she’s discussed so far. And as a special treat, stick around after the credits role for a preview of Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant featuring Gehred’s conversation with our colleague Samantha Snyder about a letter from Elizabeth Willing Powel to George Washington. About our Guest: Kathryn Gehred is a Research Editor at The Washington Papers Project at the University of Virginia. She is also on the staff of the Center for Digital Editing. A historian of early American women, Gehred is the host of the podcast Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant, a women’s history podcast which showcases the kinds of eighteenth and early nineteenth-century women’s letters that don’t always make it into the history books.
Sep 01, 202101:04:37
208. Harnessing Harmony in the Early Republic with Billy Coleman (Summer Repeat)

208. Harnessing Harmony in the Early Republic with Billy Coleman (Summer Repeat)

On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key began composing "The Star-Spangled Banner after witnessing the British attack on Fort McHenry. Of all the things he could have done after seeing that flag, why did Key write a song?  And how did his new composition fit into a much longer history of music as a form of political persuasion in the Early Republic?

On today’s episode, Dr. Billy Coleman joins us explore the power of music in the early United States, and how Federalists in particular used it as a kind of weapon to advance their vision of a harmonious nation led by elites. He also helps us understand why music as a form of historical evidence is a remarkable way to get inside the heads, and the hearts, of people from ages past. Coleman is the Kinder Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in Political History at the University of Missouri. He is the author of Harnessing Harmony: Music, Power, and Politics in the United States, 1788-1865, (UNC Press, 2020).

Coleman and his collaborator, the music producer Running Notch, have also created a soundtrack for the book, featuring modern interpretations of some of the most important political songs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.nFind the soundtrack here or search for “Harnessing Harmony” on Spotify.

You’ll hear clips from a couple of these tunes over the course of today’s program, but make sure you stick around after the credits roll for an exclusive opportunity to hear the complete versions of "Hail, Columbia" and "Jefferson and Liberty," which appear “ courtesy of Running Notch from the “Book Soundtrack” to Billy Coleman’s Harnessing Harmony: Music, Power, and Politics in the United States, 1788–1865 (UNC Press).

About Our Guest

Billy Coleman, Ph.D. is the Kinder Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in Political History at the University of Missouri. His research articles also appear in the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of the Early Republic. His new project, “Making Music National in a Settler State,” is exploring the transnational origins of national music in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Dr. Coleman is currently the North American-based Book Reviews Editor for the peer-reviewed journal, American Nineteenth Century History


Aug 18, 202101:05:02
207. Offering George Washington a Royal Gift with Professor José Emilio Yanes (Summer Repeat)

207. Offering George Washington a Royal Gift with Professor José Emilio Yanes (Summer Repeat)

In 1784, King Charles III of Spain sent George Washington a token of his esteem. Knowing that Washington had long sought a Spanish donkey for his Mount Vernon estate, the king permitted a jack to be exported to the new United States. Washington named the donkey Royal Gift in recognition of its royal origin, and the donkey became somewhat of a minor celebrity when he disembarked from his ship in 1785.
As it turns out, Spanish jacks like Royal Gift were highly prized animals in the Atlantic world. And in this case the Spanish, who had supported the United States during the American Revolution, saw an opportunity to use a donkey as a way to shore up diplomatic relations with the new republic and protect their interests in North America.
On today’s show, Professor José Emilio Yanes joins Jim Ambuske to discuss his new book, El Regalo de Carlos III A George Washington: El periplo de Royal Gift.
Yanes is a veterinarian and Associate Professor at the University of Salamanca in Spain. As the title of his work suggests, it is a Spanish language book, one that makes use of manuscripts in Spanish archives to flesh out Royal Gift’s story.
We spoke last fall with the help of his friend and collaborator, Allan Winn, Jr., who it so happens is a native of Alexandria, Virginia who has lived in Spain for many years now and runs Allan School of English in Zamora.
If Spanish happens to be your mother tongue, or if you are like me and you are desperately trying to get better at it, please check out the Spanish-language version of this episode, which will appear in your podcast feed.
Before we get started, we ask that you do us a quick favor. If you like the show, please drop us a review through your favorite podcast app. We’d really appreciate. And be sure to check out our new website for the show, which we think will make it easier for you to find your favorite episodes. You can find us at
www.georgewashingtonpodcast.com.
About Our Guests:
José Emilio Yanes Garcia is Superior Polytechnic School of Zamora and Associate Professor at the University of Salamanca (Spain). He is the author of El Regalo de Carlos III A George Washington: El periplo de Royal Gift (2019).
Allan R. Winn, Jr. is a native of Alexandria, Virginia who now resides in Zomora, Spain. He is the proprietor of Allan School of English. Winn assisted Yanes with translation work in El Regalo de Carlos III A George Washington and provided translation for this episode.
Aug 04, 202139:55
206. Promoting Joseph Smith for President with Dr. Spencer W. McBride

206. Promoting Joseph Smith for President with Dr. Spencer W. McBride

The American Revolution dismembered a protestant empire. In the years during and after the war, states disestablished their churches, old and new denominations flourished, and Americans enshrined religious freedom into their state and federal constitutions.

But claiming religious freedom in a democracy was not the same as enjoying it. In the republic’s early years, Joseph Smith, who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his Mormon brethren learned all too well the difference between ideal and reality.

In Missouri and elsewhere, Smith and his fellow Mormons faced persecution for their beliefs, yet had faith that American democracy would help right these wrongs. But as it became clear that state and federal officials would not intervene, Smith arrived at a bold conclusion--he would run for president in 1844 on one of the most radical platforms in American history.

On today’s show, Dr. Spencer W. McBride joins Jim Ambuske to talk about Smith, Mormonism, and the politics of religion in the early republic.

McBride is the author of the new book Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom, published by Oxford University Press in 2021.

About Our Guest:

Spencer W. McBride, Ph.D., is an Associate Managing Historian of the Joseph Smith Papers Project and the author of Pulpit and Nation: Clergymen and the Politics of Revolutionary America. He has written about the evolving role of religion in American politics for the Washington Post and the Deseret News. He is also the creator and host of The First Vision: A Joseph Smith Papers Podcast.

Jul 22, 202144:29
205. Grieving with the Widow Washington with Dr. Martha Saxton

205. Grieving with the Widow Washington with Dr. Martha Saxton

In the eighteenth century, death stalked early Americans like a predator hunting its prey. In Virginia, as in other colonies, death made children orphans and wives widows, making a precarious existence all that much more challenging. For the Virginia elite, death also created opportunities for widows and widowers alike to protect their interests, their property, and their social standing through advantageous re-marriages.
But the predator’s teeth never dulled, and when it took another life some Virginians like Mary Washington turned to devotional texts for comfort and for the strength to press onward.
Historians have not looked favorably on George Washington’s mother over the past few decades, finding her to be difficult, stubborn, and often a drag on her more famous son. Yet as today’s guest tells us, those observations take their cue from George himself, and ignore the full shape of her life, one in which death was a constant companion.
Dr. Martha Saxton joins Jim Ambuske today to discuss her new book, The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington.
Dr. Saxton is Professor of History, Women’s, and Gender Studies emerita at Amherst College. And as you’ll hear, books like Matthew Hale’s Contemplations, Moral and Divine offered Mary solace in a world in which death was very much a part of life.
About our Guest:
Martha Saxton, Ph.D., is Professor of History, Women’s, and Gender Studies emerita at Amherst College. She is the author of Being Good: Women's Moral Values in Early America, (Hill and Wang, 2003), and The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington (Hill and Wang, 2019).
Jul 12, 202139:60
204. Raising Liberty Poles in the Early Republic with Dr. Shira Lurie

204. Raising Liberty Poles in the Early Republic with Dr. Shira Lurie

If you’ve taken part in a part in a protest recently, perhaps you carried a sign, waved a flag, or worn a special hat.

But if you had grievances in the American Revolution or early Republic, you might have helped raise a Liberty Pole.

Now, you may ask yourself, what good is a large wooden pole gonna do about my high taxes?

And you may ask yourself, do I really want to lift this heavy thing?

Turns out, as the days went by in the late eighteenth century, many Americans thought Liberty Poles were the perfect way to signal their collective displeasure and rally their countrymen against some perceived wrong.

And what one group could put up, another could most assuredly pull down.

On today’s episode, we’ll hear from Dr. Shira Lurie, an expert on these strange objects and the meaning they held for Americans in the founding generation. Americans used Liberty Poles to argue over a citizen’s role in a republic. And what was a symbol of liberty to some, was an icon of tyranny to others.

Lurie is an Assistant Professor of History at St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia. She’s the author an article recently published in the Journal of the Early American Republic entitled, “Liberty Poles and the Fight for Popular Politics in the Early Republic.”

Besides Liberty Poles, Lurie tells us how she tries to reach many different audiences as a historian, and what it’s like to teach American history in both Canada and the United States.

About our Guest:

Shira Lurie, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of History at St. Mary's University. She is a political historian of the early United States with particular interests in popular politics, protest, and political violence. Her current book project explores liberty poles and debates over dissent in the early republic. She also thinks, teaches, and writes about historical memory in public space and popular culture.


Jun 24, 202137:50
203. Planting the World of Plymouth Plantation with Dr. Carla Gardina Pestana
Jun 10, 202144:14
202. Digitizing the Maryland Loyalist Experience with Dr. Kyle Roberts and Dr. Benjamin Bankhurst

202. Digitizing the Maryland Loyalist Experience with Dr. Kyle Roberts and Dr. Benjamin Bankhurst

Maryland wasn’t so merry for some Americans during the Revolutionary War, especially if you happened to side with the king. Professing fealty to the Crown, for whatever reason or motivation, cost many Maryland colonists their property, and sometimes their lives.

But for other Maryland Loyalists, like enslaved people, loyalism was an opportunity to achieve a different kind of American independence, or to turn ideas about class and patriarchy on their heads.

Last week we, began our two-part look at loyalism in the Chesapeake. We began in Virginia and the potential for a digital project now in its early stages to radically complicate our understanding of loyalty in the Old Dominion.

On today’s episode, we turn north and head to Maryland, to feast on crab cakes, and sink our teeth into The Maryland Loyalism Project.

Created by Dr. Kyle Roberts of the American Philosophical Society and Dr. Benjamin Bankhurst of Shepherd University, the Maryland Loyalism Project is a digital archive that brings together the stories of Maryland women and men who remained loyal to the Crown during the American Revolution.

More than just home to digitized copies of Loyalist Claims, the project is a research and teaching tool about the diversity of the Maryland Loyalist experience.

And to help illustrate its potential, today you’ll also hear from some of Roberts and Bankhurt’s students about what they found digging in these records, and what they make of them.

About Our Guests:

Kyle Roberts, Ph.D., is Associate Director of Library & Museum Programming of the American Philosophical Society Library & Museum. He is co-director of the Maryland Loyalism Project.

Benjamin Bankhurst, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of History at Shepherd University and co-director of the Maryland Loyalism Project.

May 27, 202149:15
201. Uncovering the Virginia Loyalists with Drs. Stephanie Seal Walters and Alexi Garrett

201. Uncovering the Virginia Loyalists with Drs. Stephanie Seal Walters and Alexi Garrett

Virginia was home to many of the most famous rebels like George Washington during the American Revolution, but it was also a den of Tories who remained loyal to the British king.
Loyalists in all the colonies rejected what they called “the unnatural rebellion” and resisted Patriot forces as they tried to restore the king’s peace to British America.
In Virginia, a civil war raged between white colonists, enslaved people who sought their freedom, and many more who just tried to stay out of the way. And when the war ended, many Loyalists faced a desperate choice: abandon their homes and seek refuge in the empire, or melt back into American society and hope their neighbors remained ignorant of their political leanings.
What can we learn by studying the disaffected in the American Revolution? What do we gain by looking at the Revolution not as a glorious cause, but as a civil war?
On today’s show, we begin a two-part look at Loyalism in the Chesapeake Bay region by talking with scholars who are working hard to reconstruct the Loyalist experience in Virginia and Maryland.
Drs. Stephanie Seal Walters and Alexi Garrett join Jim Ambuske today to talk about Virginia Loyalists and their world, and their ambition to make documents submitted to the Loyalist Claims Commission by Virginians beginning in 1783 more accessible to the public.
On our next episode, Drs. Ben Bankhurst and Kyle Roberts stop by to chat about their Maryland Loyalism Project, a digital archive they’ve created with help from their students to tell the stories of those who gloried in the name of Tory in the Revolutionary Era.
Be sure to stay tuned for that conversation.
About our Guests:
Stephanie Seal Walters, Ph.D., is Digital Liaison to the Humanities at the University of Southern Mississippi. She is an Atlantic World historian studying loyalists and loyalism in Virginia and British North America in the Revolutionary Era. She also serve as the Assistant Editor for the Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project.
Alexi Garrett, Ph.D., is the 2020-2022 Institute of Thomas Paine Studies and University of Virginia Press Post-Doctoral Fellow at Iona College. She is an early American historian who researches how elite, unmarried white women (legally classified as feme soles) commercially related to the people they enslaved, and how they managed slave-manned enterprises in the American revolutionary and early national periods.
May 13, 202149:42
200. Transcribing From The Page with Sara and Ben Brumfield

200. Transcribing From The Page with Sara and Ben Brumfield

When the COVID pandemic stuck last spring, thousands of cultural heritage sites, including the Washington Library and Mount Vernon, had to find ways to help team members do work from home. That wasn’t always easy, especially as so much of our normal work requires a physical presence.

One of our solutions at the Library was to use this time to transcribe the voluminous correspondence of Harrison Dodge, Mount Vernon’s superintendent in the late 19th century.

And to do that, we turned to a digital platform called FromThePage. FromthePage is a crowdsourcing transcription tool that allows users to transcribe historical documents from the comfort of their own homes. Since last March, for example, our Dodge project collaborators have made nearly 9,000 page edits and contributed over 400 research notes.

So on today’s episode, you’ll meet Sara and Ben Brumfield, the creators of FromThePage. Inspired by their involvement in Wikipedia’s early days, and hoping to find ways to transcribe treasured family heirlooms, the Brumfields set out to create a way for people – including those of you listening right now – to collaboratively transcribe the past.

Check out our show notes or go to www.fromthepage.com to find out how you can join a crowdsource transcription project.

About Our Guests:

Sara and Ben Brumfield are the proprietors of Brumfield Labs, a software development firm, and the creators of FromThePage. Sara earned a BA in Computer Science and the Study of Women and Gender from Rice University. Ben took his BA in Computer Science and Linguistics from Rice 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.

Apr 29, 202150:13
199. Unravelling the Strange Genius of Mr. O. with Dr. Carolyn Eastman

199. Unravelling the Strange Genius of Mr. O. with Dr. Carolyn Eastman

In the early years of the nineteenth century, former Virginia schoolteacher James Ogilvie embarked on a lecture tour that took the United States by storm.
Born Scotland, Ogilvie became a renowned orator, packing rooms in urban Philadelphia and rural Kentucky alike. As he crisscrossed the nation, lecturing on topics that spoke to American anxieties about the fate of their young republic, Ogilvie became a major celebrity.
Many Americans admired him, some even hated him, as he asked them to look into the mirror to see themselves.
On today’s show, Dr. Carolyn Eastman joins Jim Ambuske to discuss her new book, The Strange Genius of Mr. O: The United States’ First Forgotten Celebrity published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2021. Dr. Eastman is a Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University. Please visit the University of North Carolina Press's website to learn how you can get 40% Dr. Eastman's book.
About Our Guest:
Carolyn Eastman, Ph.D., is associate professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of the prizewinning A Nation of Speechifiers: Making an American Public after the Revolution.
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.
Apr 15, 202152:17
198. Contesting Monuments and Memory in South Carolina with Dr. Lydia Brandt

198. Contesting Monuments and Memory in South Carolina with Dr. Lydia Brandt

The South Carolina State House Grounds is a landscape of monuments and memory. Since the capital moved from Charleston to Columbia in the 1780s, South Carolinians have been erecting, moving, and contesting monuments on the capitol’s grounds, using them to debate the past as they really argue about their present. Monuments and statues are the subject of great debate right now, not only in the United States, but around the world, and South Carolina’s commemorations can help us to understand why. In 1858, South Carolinians purchased a George Washington statute for their capitol grounds, as did other legislatures in the nineteenth century, but the reasons they did so may surprise you. On today’s show, former Washington Library Research Fellow Dr. Lydia Brandt joins Jim Ambuske to discuss her new book, The South Carolina State House Grounds: A Guidebook, published by the University of South Carolina Press in 2021. Brandt, who is a professor of art history at the university, is an expert on how American buildings and landscapes shape ideas about the past. Her book takes the public on a tour of the Carolina capitol to show how metal, earth, and stone tell stories about the past and attempt to re-write it. Brandt is also the host of Historically Complex, a podcast that guides listeners on a walking tour of the South Carolina State House Grounds. Stay tuned after today’s conversation for an exclusive sneak peek at one of Brandt’s Historically Complex episodes. About Our Guest: Lydia Mattice Brandt, Ph.D., is an architectural historian, historic preservationist, and associate professor of art history at the University of South Carolina. She is the author of First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington's Mount Vernon in the American Imagination and many articles published in Winterthur Portfolio, Antiques & Fine Art, and the Public Historian. About of 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.
Apr 02, 202154:04
197. Stumbling Upon the Journal of Johann Peter Oettinger with Craig Koslofsky and Roberto Zaugg

197. Stumbling Upon the Journal of Johann Peter Oettinger with Craig Koslofsky and Roberto Zaugg

Two weeks ago, we brought you the story of Johann Peter Oettinger, a seventeenth-century German-speaking barber-surgeon who in 1693 journeyed to Africa and the West Indies on behalf of the Brandenburg African Company. His journal from that period captures the height of German participation in the transatlantic slave trade.
Today, we bring you the story of the journal itself and how two historians, Craig Koslofsky and Robert Zaugg, found the manuscript independently of one another in the Berlin archives.
The journal’s history is as important as its contents. How we interpret the history within it means we need to know something of its origin. And for more than a century, what historians thought was Oettinger’s authentic journal, wasn’t the real journal at all.
On today’s show, Koslofsky and Zaugg weave together a tale made of paper scraps, lost manuscripts, family revisions, and plain dumb luck to reveal the journal’s true origin, and how what could have resulted in the academic equivalent of fisticuffs turned into a wonderful collaboration.
Koslofsky and Zaugg are the co-editors and translators of A German Barber-Surgeon in the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Seventeenth-Century Journal of Johann Peter Oettinger (University of Virginia Press, 2021).
Our friends at UVA Press are offering a 40% discount on this published edition of Oettinger’s journal. If you’d like your own copy, use discount code 10BARBER on the press's website.
About Our Guests:
Craig Koslofsky, Ph.D, is Professor of History and Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Roberto Zaugg, Ph.D., is is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
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.
Mar 18, 202156:05
196. Reconstructing the Life of a German Barber-Surgeon in the Atlantic Slave Trade with Craig Koslofsky and Roberto Zaugg

196. Reconstructing the Life of a German Barber-Surgeon in the Atlantic Slave Trade with Craig Koslofsky and Roberto Zaugg

In 1693, the young German barber-surgeon Johann Peter Oettinger joined a slave trading venture for the second time.

In the employ of the Brandenburg African Company, Oettinger sailed with his shipmates from Europe to the African coast where they procured their captive human cargo, took the middle passage to the West Indies, and exchanged their enslaved people in the colonies for a variety of goods. Along the way, Oettinger encountered a mix of European, African, and colonial peoples who traded or were traded, across borders, often regardless of nationality.

We know about Oettinger’s involvement because he kept a journal. His two stints aboard slave trading vessels were part of a 14-year period as a journeyman in Europe and the Atlantic world, a life he recorded on scraps of paper that he eventual fashioned into a proper diary.

Oettinger’s voyage marked the high-point of German-speaking peoples' participation in the transatlantic slave trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Through his words we can see how that trade shaped lives far beyond the ocean’s borders. It is a portrait of an early modern world becoming modern.

On today’s show, Jim Ambuske talks with Dr. Craig Koslofsky and Dr. Roberto Zaugg, the two historians who discovered Oettinger’s long forgotten journal buried in the Berlin archives

Koslofsky and Zaugg are the co-editors and translators of A German Barber-Surgeon in the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Seventeenth-Century Journal of Johann Peter Oettinger (University of Virginia Press, 2021).

This is part one of a two-part series about Oettinger’s life and journal. On today’s episode, we explore Oettinger’s European and Atlantic worlds, and his 1693 slave-trading voyage. In two weeks, we’ll talk about the journal as an artifact, one that has a remarkable history in its own right, and how Koslosfsky and Zaugg stumbled across it.

Our friends at UVA Press are offering a 40% discount on this published edition of Oettinger’s journal. If you’d like your own copy, use discount code 10BARBER on the press's website

About Our Guests:

Craig Koslofsky, Ph.D, is Professor of History and Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Roberto Zaugg, Ph.D., is is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

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.

Mar 04, 202159:52
195b. [En Español] Ofreciendo a George Washington un regalo real con el profesor José Emilio Yanes

195b. [En Español] Ofreciendo a George Washington un regalo real con el profesor José Emilio Yanes

Bienvenido a Conversaciones en la Biblioteca de Washington. 

Hoy, Jim Ambuske habla con el profesor José Emilio Yanes de la Universidad de Salamanca en España. Yanes es el autor del libro El Regalo de Carlos III A George Washington: El periplo de Royal Gift. El libro cuenta la historia de cómo un burro jugó un papel importante en la relación diplomática entre España y los nuevos Estados Unidos. 

Muchas gracias a Allan Winn, Jr. por traducir durante nuestra conversación. Gracias por escuchar. Obtenga más información sobre George Washington y Mount Vernon visitando www.mountvernon.org.

Muchas gracias a Kelly Molds por su ayuda editorial.

About Our Guests:

José Emilio Yanes Garcia is Superior Polytechnic School of Zamora and Associate Professor at the University of Salamanca (Spain). He is the author of El Regalo de Carlos III A George Washington: El periplo de Royal Gift (2019).

Allan R. Winn, Jr. is a native of Alexandria, Virginia who now resides in Zomora, Spain. He is the proprietor of Allan School of English. Winn assisted Yanes with translation work in El Regalo de Carlos III A George Washington and provided translation for this episode.

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.

Feb 18, 202130:27
195a. Offering George Washington a Royal Gift with Professor José Emilio Yanes

195a. Offering George Washington a Royal Gift with Professor José Emilio Yanes

In 1784, King Charles III of Spain sent George Washington a token of his esteem. Knowing that Washington had long sought a Spanish donkey for his Mount Vernon estate, the king permitted a jack to be exported to the new United States. Washington named the donkey Royal Gift in recognition of its royal origin, and the donkey became somewhat of a minor celebrity when he disembarked from his ship in 1785.

As it turns out, Spanish jacks like Royal Gift were highly prized animals in the Atlantic world. And in this case the Spanish, who had supported the United States during the American Revolution, saw an opportunity to use a donkey as a way to shore up diplomatic relations with the new republic and protect their interests in North America.

On today’s show, Professor José Emilio Yanes joins Jim Ambuske to discuss his new book, El Regalo de Carlos III A George Washington: El periplo de Royal Gift.

Yanes is a veterinarian and Associate Professor at the University of Salamanca in Spain. As the title of his work suggests, it is a Spanish language book, one that makes use of manuscripts in Spanish archives to flesh out Royal Gift’s story.

We spoke last fall with the help of his friend and collaborator, Allan Winn, Jr., who it so happens is a native of Alexandria, Virginia who has lived in Spain for many years now and runs Allan School of English in Zamora.

If Spanish happens to be your mother tongue, or if you are like me and you are desperately trying to get better at it, please check out the Spanish-language version of this episode, which will appear in your podcast feed.

Before we get started, we ask that you do us a quick favor. If you like the show, please drop us a review through your favorite podcast app. We’d really appreciate. And be sure to check out our new website for the show, which we think will make it easier for you to find your favorite episodes. You can find us at www.georgewashingtonpodcast.com.

About Our Guests:

José Emilio Yanes Garcia is Superior Polytechnic School of Zamora and Associate Professor at the University of Salamanca (Spain). He is the author of El Regalo de Carlos III A George Washington: El periplo de Royal Gift (2019).

Allan R. Winn, Jr. is a native of Alexandria, Virginia who now resides in Zomora, Spain. He is the proprietor of Allan School of English. Winn assisted Yanes with translation work in El Regalo de Carlos III A George Washington and provided translation for this episode.

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.

Feb 18, 202143:24
194. Building Digital History Projects at the Washington Library with the ITPS Interns

194. Building Digital History Projects at the Washington Library with the ITPS Interns

One of the most important things we’re able to do at the Center for Digital History is offer internships to college students.

Working with students allows us to move our projects forward while giving them real world opportunities to do the kind of work that historians do, and development skills that will hopefully serve them well later in life.

Now, we’ve talked about our internship program on the show before – you might recall our chat with Jamie Morris of Washington College – and today you’ll get to hear from three excellent students who joined our team last fall, thanks to a partnership with the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona College.

Felicia, Moriah, and Christian, all students at Iona, joined us virtually over the course of the fall term to help us with the Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington and the reconstruction of the Database of Enslaved People at Mount Vernon.

Jim Ambuske and Jeanette Patrick and served as the site coordinators at the Washington Library for these internships, while Dr. Michael Crowder, the ITPS’s public historian, was the students’ instructor. He’s one of the architects of the institute's internships as well.

So on today’s show, Michael, Jeanette, and Jim chat with our interns about their interest in history and their experiences working with us over the past few months, and then at the end the three of us reflect on the semester, what worked, and the opportunities that lie ahead.

About Our Guests:

Felicia Ferrando is a Junior majoring in History at Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. 

Moriah Simmons is a Junior majoring in History at Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. 

Christian Zimmardi is a Senior majoring in Political Science at Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. 

Michael Crowder is the Public Historian at The Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona College. He earned a Ph.D. in the History Department at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His project, “Human Capital: The Moral and Political Economy of Northeastern Abolitionism, 1763-1833,” examines the relationships between the rapid growth of abolitionism and capitalism in the Era of the American Revolution. He has also written essays about the African colonization movement and American participation in the slave trade, as well as articles about American football for rollingstone.com. In addition to serving as an archival fellow, he teaches American History at Queens College, CUNY.

About Our Hosts:

Jeanette Patrick is the Digital Writer and Researcher in the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. Among her many responsibilities, she serves as Associate Editor of the Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington.  She 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.

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.

Feb 04, 202142:02
193. Rifling through Washington's Receipts with Dr. Julie Miller

193. Rifling through Washington's Receipts with Dr. Julie Miller

Take a receipt out of your pocket. What does it say about you? Receipts can tell us a lot about people and the world in which they lived. And George Washington kept receipts.

On today’s show, Dr. Julie Miller joins Jim Ambuske to discuss the hidden lives we can find in Washington’s receipts and similar documents. Dr. Miller is a historian and the Curator of Early American Manuscripts at the Library of Congress, where she oversees a vast array of archival material, including Washington Papers.

She’s also one of the forces behind the Library of Congress’s Crowdsourcing Campaign, By the People, which encourages citizens to transcribe manuscripts in the library’s collections. Last year, the Library asked folks to transcribe two groups of unpublished Washington Papers dating to the Revolutionary War, a collection of receipts and a bundle of British deserter interrogations, with the goal of learning more about people like Mary Smith, Washington’s housekeeper.

Dr. Miller helps us see the stories we can tease out from these sources. They also touch on the Library of Congress’s collaboration with the Georgian Papers Programme and their future exhibit, The Two Georges, which will explore the commonalities shared by George Washington and George III.

She also has recently published a new book, Cry of Murder on Broadway: A Woman’s Ruin and Revenge in Old New York, which is out now from Cornell University Press. If you like true crime, this book’s for you.

About Our Guest: 

Julie Miller, Ph.D., is the author of Abandoned: Foundlings in Nineteenth-Century New York City. She is the Curator of Early American Manuscripts at the Library of Congress. She taught in the history department at Hunter College, City University of New York, before moving to Washington, DC.

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.

Jan 21, 202152:59
Throwing a Change-Up at the Washington Library with Jim Ambuske

Throwing a Change-Up at the Washington Library with Jim Ambuske

We wanted to let you know of some exciting changes we’ll be making to the podcast that will allow you to hear more from groundbreaking historians and scholars in new ways.

Beginning today, Conversations at the Washington Library is moving to an every other week schedule. That means no new episode this week, but we’ll be back on January 21, 2021 with my chat with Julie Miller of the Library of Congress about the hidden lives in George Washington’s papers.

Now, why are we making this change?

As you may know, since the beginning the COVID_19 pandemic, our team at the Washington Library has been producing and hosting live digital book talks with authors around the country and the world. Even when we go back to in-person programming, and hopefully that will be soon, we’ll continue to offer you at least one digital talk a month through Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

In short, we’re launching a permanent digital talk series. To accommodate this exciting development, we’re transitioning Conversations at the Washington Library to the new schedule. But never fear; you’ll still get the same great in-depth conversations about the past and the people who explore it, just with a week’s breather in-between.

We’re also shaking things up because we’re developing scripted podcast series that will allow us to tell stories about Washington’s early American world in narrative form. We’ve got some great stuff in the works, and while we can’t talk about our plans just yet, our team is hard at work in the writer’s room finding ways to bring forgotten voices to light.

So, look for a new episode of Conversations at the Washington Library next week, stay tuned for future announcements about our scripted series, and check out our digital talks at www.mountvernon.org/gwdigitaltalks.

Jan 14, 202101:45
192. Drinking Washington's Whiskey with Drew Hannush

192. Drinking Washington's Whiskey with Drew Hannush

For many people,  one of life’s great joys is a lovely dram of whiskey. Whether you’re a fan of Kentucky Bourbon, Single-malt Scotches, Japanese or Tennessee whiskey, every glass tells a story or contains memories that connect drinkers to different places, and different times. For Jim Ambuske, a dram of Cragganmore 12 instantly takes him back to Edinburgh, where he's spent many months hunting American Revolutionaries in the archives. But like most folks, he knows less about the stories behind the whiskies than I would like. That’s where Drew Hannush comes in. On today’s show, you’ll meet Drew, the host of the podcast Whiskey Lore, a show dedicated to exploring whiskey’s history, and debunking whiskey myths, one glass at a time. Drew stopped by the Washington Library just before the holidays to do some research for his newest season of Whiskey Lore, which will feature a series of episodes about George Washington and Whiskey. Now as you might know, Mount Vernon reconstructed Washington’s Gristmill and Distillery several years ago and the team there has been distilling whiskey ever since, something we’ve covered before in previous episodes. And just a reminder that if you’re a Virginia resident, we can now ship our whiskey and brandy directly to your door. 

Jim Ambuske and Jeanette Patrick met with Drew during his visit to talk about his own whiskey journey, the stories he’s uncovered, and his fascination with Washington’s distilling efforts. Be on the lookout for Drew’s Washington-centered Whiskey Lore episodes to drop soon. 

About Our Guest:  Drew Hannush is a writer of the best selling book "Whiskey Lore's Travel Guide to Experiencing Kentucky Bourbon." He also hosts a travel lifestyle podcast called Travel Fuels Life and a whiskey stories podcast built on the brand - Whiskey Lore. Drew has traveled extensively throughout Scotland, Ireland, and the United States touring distilleries, picking up stories, and helping inspire travelers and whiskey lovers through his social media posts, book, and whisk(e)y tasting experiences. He uses his knowledge and authoritative voice to empower others. 

About Our Hosts:   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. 

Jeanette Patrick is the Center for Digital History's Digital Researcher and Writer. Among her many responsibilities, she serves as Associate Editor of the Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington.  She 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.

Jan 07, 202144:35
191. (Recast) The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret with Mary Thompson: Part 2

191. (Recast) The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret with Mary Thompson: Part 2

This is Part Two of Jim Ambuske's July 2019 chat with Washington Library Research Historian Mary V. Thompson. We’re recasting it in celebration of her 40th anniversary at Mount Vernon. If you missed Part One, please do give it a listen.

Happy New Year to you all.

About Our Guest:

Mary V. Thompson is a long-time (38 year) member of the staff at Mount Vernon, where she is now the Research Historian. She is the author of In the Hands of a Good Providence: Religion in the Life of George WashingtonA Short Biography of Martha Washington, and "The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret": George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon.

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.

Dec 31, 202040:22
190. (Recast) The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret with Mary Thompson: Part 1

190. (Recast) The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret with Mary Thompson: Part 1

Forty years ago, Mary V. Thompson began her career at Mount Vernon as a museum attendant and history interpreter. She was quickly promoted to Curatorial Assistant, and within a few short years was named Curatorial Registrar, where she began researching numerous Washington and Mount Vernon related topics such as 18th-century foodways, animals, religion, Native Americans, genealogy, domestic life, & slavery.

Today, she is the Washington Library’s indispensable Research Historian, and as many of our listeners no doubt know, she is the go to person for all things Mount Vernon and Washington.

In celebration of Mary’s 40th anniversary at Mount Vernon, we’re pleased to bring you Jim Ambuske's July 2019 chat with her about her prize-winning book, “The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret: George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon,which recently won the James Bradford Best Biography Prize from the Society of Historians for the Early Republic.

Thompson and Ambuske talked over the course of two episodes about her experiences at Mount Vernon, her interest in the enslaved community at Mount Vernon, and of course, her book. So after you’ve finished with Part One here, be sure to check out Part Two as well.

And if you’d like to purchase a copy of Mary’s book, head over to shops.mountvernon.org to grab yours. Congratulations Mary on 40 amazing years at Mount Vernon. Here’s to many more.

About Our Guest:

Mary V. Thompson is a long-time (38 year) member of the staff at Mount Vernon, where she is now the Research Historian. She is the author of In the Hands of a Good Providence: Religion in the Life of George WashingtonA Short Biography of Martha Washington, and "The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret": George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon.

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.

Dec 31, 202031:46
189. Confronting an Absolutist Monarch with Dr. Karie Schultz

189. Confronting an Absolutist Monarch with Dr. Karie Schultz

In this season of religious renewal, we bring you a story of religious dissent. In 1638, many of King Charles I’s Presbyterian subjects gathered at Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh to sign the National Covenant. By renewing their own covenant with the Almighty, they also pledged to resist encroachments on church government by the king, and the innovations in doctrine he sought to make for the Church of Scotland.

As we’ve discovered in previous episodes, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a time of religious upheaval and political discord. Reformation and Civil War remade European society, especially in the British Isles, and profoundly shaped colonial American history.

Civil War and religious strife eroded the idea of the divine right of kings, leaving Charles I headless in the end.  These revolutions helped to create the eighteenth-century British world that George Washington rebelled against, as well as the kind of monarch George III would become.

Today’s episode builds on recent conversations with Dr. Michelle D. Brock, Dr. Márcia Balisciano, and more as we explore the Covenanters movement in seventeenth-century Scotland with Dr. Karie Schultz.  For many of the thousands of Scots Presbyterians who settled in the American colonies in the decades before the American Revolution, including a man like the Reverend John Witherspoon, the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence, the National Covenant was a seminal moment in their religious history.

Dr. Schultz takes us back to the seventeenth century to help us understand the origins of this crucial contest between king and kirk.

Jim Ambuske caught up with Schultz over Zoom earlier this summer as she was finishing up her graduate studies at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland. She is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at the British School in Rome and the host of the podcast, Research in Scottish History, where Schultz and her guests break down exciting new work on a range of topics, from Scots in the Caribbean to the material culture of the hit series Outlander. Do check it out.

About Our Guest:

Dr. Karie Schultz completed a PhD on 'Political Thought and Protestant Intellectual Culture in the Scottish Revolution, 1637-51' at Queen's University Belfast. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the British School at Rome where she is studying the intellectual networks between Italian Jesuits and the Scottish and English priests training at their respective colleges in Rome, 1600-1745. She hosts the podcast, Research in Scottish History.

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.

Dec 24, 202049:06
188. Exploring the Benjamin Franklin House of London with Dr. Márcia Balisciano

188. Exploring the Benjamin Franklin House of London with Dr. Márcia Balisciano

In 1757, Benjamin Franklin returned to London after an over thirty-year absence. He first ventured to the imperial capital in 1724 to continue his education as a printer; he went back in the late 1750s as a politician, after being named the London agent for the Pennsylvania Assembly. Franklin took up residence at 36 Craven Street in London, today just down the way from Charing Cross Station, and right near Trafalgar Square. For nearly two decades, with a short return to Philadelphia in between, Franklin lived on Craven Street as he tried to advance colonial interests in the mother country. 

On today’s episode, Dr. Márcia Balisciano joins Jim Ambuske from London to explore the Craven Street House that Franklin made a home. Dr. Balisciano is the Founding Director of the Benjamin Franklin House in London, the world’s only remaining Franklin home.  And as you’ll hear, the historic site not only connects us to Franklin and his life, but to the era of the English Civil War in the 1640s, and to eighteenth-century secrets buried in the basement. 

Be sure to stay tuned after the chat to hear our first listener voice message. We’ll feature your comments and questions on the show from time to time. Find out how you can submit one later in the program. 

About Our Guest: Dr. Márcia Balisciano is Founding Director of the Benjamin Franklin House in London. She holds a Ph.D. in Economic History from The London School of Economics and Political Science. In addition to her duties at Franklin House, she is also Global Head of Corporate Responsibility at RELX, a multi-national information, analytics, and events company, and serves as Chair of the United Nations Global Compact Network in the UK.  

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.

Dec 17, 202052:58
187. Winning a Consolation Prize with Dr. Abby Mullen

187. Winning a Consolation Prize with Dr. Abby Mullen

Consuls are essential to American foreign relations. Although they may not be as flashy or as powerful as an Ambassador like Thomas Jefferson or John Quincy Adams, they’re often the goto people when an American gets in trouble abroad or when a trade deal needs to get done.

Consuls operate in cities and towns throughout the world, helping to advance American interests and maintain good relations with their host countries, all while helping you replace your lost passport.

Much has changed about the consular service since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when a consul could earn fees for his services, such as getting you out of a scrape with the local authorities

But as today’s guests demonstrates, consuls were and are the backbone of American diplomacy.

Dr. Abby Mullen joins Jim Ambuske to discuss her work on American consuls in the early Republic and her podcast, Consolation Prize, a show dedicated to telling the stories of these consuls, and the wider world in which they lived.

Mullen is Term Assistant Professor of History at George Mason University where she is also one of the key members of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.

About Our Guest:

Abby Mullen holds a PhD in history from Northeastern University (2017). Her dissertation, "Good Neighbourhood with All: Conflict and Cooperation in the First Barbary War, 1801-1805," investigates how the U.S. Navy forged international connections in the Mediterranean during the First Barbary War.Mullen is the PI on Tropy, a Mellon Foundation-funded software development project. She is also technical lead on All the Appalachian Trails, a project to create an interactive map of the history of the Appalachian Trail over the last 100 years. Mullen teaches digital history courses at George Mason 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.

Dec 10, 202050:08
186. Exploring New Frontiers in Early American History with Alexi Garrett, Michael Blaakman, Derek O’Leary, and Krysten Blackstone

186. Exploring New Frontiers in Early American History with Alexi Garrett, Michael Blaakman, Derek O’Leary, and Krysten Blackstone

In the eighteenth century, Benjamin Franklin and other early Americans likened themselves to a rising people who were creating something new under the sun. It’s fair to say that historians have a similar mindset: we’re constantly striving to uncover new evidence, make new arguments, and offer new interpretations that help us better explain the past. So on today’s show, we’re going to introduce you to just a few among a rising generation of historians who are doing cutting edge work in early American history. Recently, the Washington Library partnered with the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello for a live stream featuring four young historians working on projects ranging from land speculation, capitalism, gender, and law in the late eighteenth century to morale in the Continental Army and soldiering in the American Revolution, to the creation of the archives that shaped how American citizens interrogated the Revolutionary Era. We bring you the audio version of the livestream today, featuring historians Alexi Garrett, Michael Blaakman, Derek O’Leary, and Krysten Blackstone in conversation with Jim Ambuske, Kevin Butterfield, and Andrew O'Shaughnessy. About Our Guests:  Alexi Garrett, Ph.D., examines how elite, unmarried white women (legally classified as feme soles) commercially related to the people they enslaved, and how they managed slave-manned enterprises in Virginia. Dr. Garrett completed her dissertation in 2020 under Dr. Alan Taylor in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. She was a 2020 Research Fellow at the ICJS and a 2019-2020 Research Fellow at the Washington Library. She is currently the Institute of Thomas Paine Studies and University of Virginia Press Post-Doctoral Fellow at Iona College. She is from Iowa City and received her B.A. from St. Olaf College. Michael A. Blaakman, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of history at Princeton University, where he teaches courses on the American Revolution as well as the history of early American frontiers and borderlands. Educated at the College of William & Mary and Yale University, Blaakman was the Amanda and Greg Gregory Fellow at Mount Vernon in 2015 and is currently the Fritz and Claudine Kundrun Open-Rank Fellow at Monticello. Dr. Blaakman’s project, Speculation Nation, unearths the motives and methods of founding-era elites who sought to profit off the future expansion of their young republic and reveals how and why the revolutionary ideal of an “empire of liberty” became rooted in speculative capitalism. Derek O'Leary, Ph.D., finished his degree in the summer of 2020 at the University of California Berkeley, where he wrote an Atlantic history of the emergence of U.S. historical societies and archives in the nineteenth century. He was a 2019-2020 Research Fellow at the Washington Library. He was drawn to George Washington and Mount Vernon by Jared Sparks (1789-1866), the indefatigable collector and editor of Washington's archive in the antebellum U.S. His work examines Sparks' contribution to the broader culture of commemorating Washington in this period. Krysten Blackstone, a native of Northern Maine, is a final-year Ph.D. candidate at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She was a 2017-2018 Research Fellow at the Washington Library. Her work examines the morale of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, 1775-1783. Her research utilizes soldiers' narratives of the conflict and is primarily concerned with enlisted soldiers. About Our Hosts: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. (Washington Library) Andrew O'Shaughnessy, Ph.D. (ICJS - Monticello) Kevin Butterfield, Ph.D. (Washington Library)
Dec 03, 202001:34:40