Do you want the latest episodes and news from Conversations at the Washington Library? Subscribe to our email list!
In the eighteenth century, the Myaamia people inhabited what are now parts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. More common…
Consuls are essential to American foreign relations. Although they may not be as flashy or as powerful as an Ambassador like Thom…
If you pull any decent history book off your shelf right now, odds are that it’s filled with quotes from letters, diaries, or acc…
On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key began composing "The Star-Spangled Banner after witnessing the British attack on Fort Mc…
In 1784, King Charles III of Spain sent George Washington a token of his esteem. Knowing that Washington had long sought a Spanis…
The American Revolution dismembered a protestant empire. In the years during and after the war, states disestablished their churc…
In the eighteenth century, death stalked early Americans like a predator hunting its prey. In Virginia, as in other colonies, dea…
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…
Plymouth Plantation occupies a powerful place in American national memory. Think of the First Thanksgiving in 1621; Englishmen es…
Maryland wasn’t so merry for some Americans during the Revolutionary War, especially if you happened to side with the king. Profe…
Virginia was home to many of the most famous rebels like George Washington during the American Revolution, but it was also a den …
When the COVID pandemic stuck last spring, thousands of cultural heritage sites, including the Washington Library and Mount Verno…
In the early years of the nineteenth century, former Virginia schoolteacher James Ogilvie embarked on a lecture tour that took th…
The South Carolina State House Grounds is a landscape of monuments and memory. Since the capital moved from Charleston to Columbi…
Two weeks ago, we brought you the story of Johann Peter Oettinger, a seventeenth-century German-speaking barber-surgeon who in 16…
In 1693, the young German barber-surgeon Johann Peter Oettinger joined a slave trading venture for the second time. In the employ…
Bienvenido a Conversaciones en la Biblioteca de Washington. Hoy, Jim Ambuske habla con el profesor José Emilio Yanes de la Univer…
In 1784, King Charles III of Spain sent George Washington a token of his esteem. Knowing that Washington had long sought a Spanis…