Conversations at the Washington Library

Conversations at the Washington Library

Conversations at the Washington Library is the premier podcast about George Washington and his Early American world.

Conversations is a production of the Center for Digital History (CDH) at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon. To learn more about the CDH, visit www.mountvernon.org/cdh.

Recent Episodes

March 12, 2024

NOW AVAILABLE: Inventing the Presidency

Now Available on all platforms! In this new podcast from the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, we'll explore George Washington as both President and precedent. From the very origins of the US presidency…
June 1, 2023

Introducing The Secrets of Washington's Archives

What did George Washington write in his personal copy of the Constitution? Who left behind messages inside some of Washington’s books? How did Washington learn to become a professional soldier? Mount Vernon introduces its la…
May 8, 2023

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 a…
Nov. 28, 2022

228. Editing the Adams Family Papers with Dr. Sara Georgini

The Adams Family is one of the more prominent families in American history. They were at the center of the American Revolution, they helped create a new republic, shaped the young nation’s foreign policy, and later were cent…
Nov. 14, 2022

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, bu…
Oct. 31, 2022

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 Mar…

Recent Blog Posts

Lafayette's Map Maker Depicts the Battle of Monmouth

The Washington Library at Mount Vernon holds a vast collection of Revolutionary War-era maps, including several carried by the Marquis de Lafayette while he served in the Continental Army.  One of the most special items in the collection is a …

About the Host

Jim Ambuske

Host, Producer, Historian, Author

Jim Ambuske, Ph.D., is Historian and Senior Producer at R2 Studios, the podcast division of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. He formerly led 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.

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