Season 4

Sept. 3, 2020

174. (Recast) Tracing the Rise and Fall of Light-Horse Harry Lee with Ryan Cole

This episode originally aired in September 2019. You may know him as Robert E. Lee’s father, but Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee was so much more. Born into a Virginia dynasty, the man who would become one of George Washington…
Aug. 27, 2020

173. Tracing the History of the Syphax Family with Steve Hammond and Brenda Parker

The Syphax Family has deep historic ties to Mount Vernon and other sites of enslavement in Virginia. In 1821, Charles Syphax, an enslaved man at Arlington House in Northern Virginia, married Maria Carter, the daughter of a w…
Aug. 20, 2020

172. Exploring White Women as Slave Owners in the American South with Stephanie Jones-Rogers

It’s easy to think of slave holding as a male profession. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and countless other men are often the names that come to mind when we think about early Americans who held other p…
Aug. 13, 2020

171. Reinterpreting Mary Ball Washington with Karin Wulf, Martha Saxton, Craig Shirley, and Charlene Boyer Lewis

On today's show, we bring you the audio from our annual Martha Washington Lecture. This year's topic was Mary Ball Washington, George's mother, and the recent work by historians to rethink what we know about her life. Dr. Ka…
Aug. 6, 2020

170. Forging a Founding Partnership with Edward J. Larson

Season 5 of the podcast drops in a few weeks. In the meantime, we're pleased to offer you Library Executive Director Kevin Butterfield’s recent live stream conversation with Edward J. Larson. Larson is the author of many boo…
July 30, 2020

169. Re-investigating an Early American Murder with Jessica Lowe

Season 5 of Conversations at the Washington Library is just around the corner. Until then, we're happy to bring you Jim Ambuske's recent live stream chat with Dr. Jessica Lowe of the University of Virginia School of Law. Lon…
July 23, 2020

168. Mining King George III's Papers with Zara Anishanslin and Arthur Burns

While work continues on the podcast's upcoming Season 5, we’re pleased to offer you another summer interlude. For today’s show, we bring you the audio version of Jim Ambuske's recent live stream chat with Professors Zara Ani…
July 16, 2020

167. Reconstructing the Indian World of George Washington with Colin Calloway

Week 3 of our summer hiatus is another opportunity to bring you a fascinating look at early America courtesy of some of our recent live stream programming. On today’s show, we bring you Library Executive Director Kevin Butte…
July 9, 2020

166. Mobilizing the Will of the People with T. H. Breen

We're excited to bring you Season 5 of Conversations at the Washington Library in a few short weeks. But in the meantime we’ll keep you entertained as promised. Today, we bring you the audio version of Executive Director Kev…
July 2, 2020

165. Facing the Long Year of Revolution with Mary Beth Norton

Summer has arrived and with it the end of Season 4 of Conversations at the Washington Library . But don't despair! While we're busy recording new episodes for Season 5, we'll keep the conversation going by bringing you the a…
June 25, 2020

164. Battling Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay with Jamie L. H. Goodall

During the American Revolution, the Chesapeake Bay was a pirate’s nest. The men who plied the Bay’s waters had shifting loyalties, competing interests, and a keen sense of how to use the law to legitimize their actions. In f…
June 18, 2020

163. Returning to Lives Bound Together on Juneteenth with Jessie MacLeod

This Friday marks the anniversary of Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the moment on June 19, 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas learned they were freed by Emancipation Proclamation and the Confederacy’s d…
June 11, 2020

162. Ending Washington's Life with Jonathan Horn

In March 1797, newly-inaugurated president John Adams thought he detected a glint of joy in George Washington’s eyes as the aging Virginian stepped off the world stage. Adams told his wife Abigail it was as if Washington was…
June 4, 2020

161. (Repeat) Finding Ona Judge's Voice with Sheila Arnold

Note: This episode originally aired on January 30, 2020. In May 1796, Ona Judge , Martha Washington’s enslaved maidservant, freed herself by walking out of the Washington’s Philadelphia home. She had learned that Martha inte…
May 28, 2020

160. Recasting Tacky's Revolt as an Atlantic Slave War with Vincent Brown

Virginia is a landscape shaped by slavery and the enslaved communities who labored in bondage on plantations like Mount Vernon, Monticello, and the smaller farms that surrounded these large estates. But in the eighteenth cen…
May 21, 2020

159. Preserving Historic Real Estate with Whitney Martinko

In 1812, Pennsylvania state legislators contemplated something that most Americans would now find completely unimaginable: demolishing Independence Hall in Philadelphia, converting the site to a series of building lots, and …
May 14, 2020

158. Praying to the Adams Family Gods with Sara Georgini

In November 1800, President John Adams composed a letter to his wife, Abigail, just after he moved into the new White House. He concluded his letter to his “dearest friend” this way: “I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Bles…
May 7, 2020

157. Finding the Hidden Families behind the Boston Massacre with Serena Zabin

On the evening of March 5, 1770, Captain Thomas Preston and a small contingent of British Redcoats under his command fired into a crowd of civilians massing on King Street in Boston, killing several people. Many of us are fa…
April 30, 2020

156. Making a Pilgrimage to Washington's Tomb with Matthew Costello

In December 1799, George Washington died after a short illness. His body and his legacy quickly became fodder for nineteenth century Americans – free and enslaved – who were struggling to make sense of what it meant to be an…
April 23, 2020

155. Painting Portraits of Colonial Virginia with Janine Yorimoto Boldt

In 1757, Martha Dandridge Custis paid the artist John Wollaston the handsome sum of 56 pistoles for portraits of her, her husband Daniel Parke Custis , and their children , John and Martha. A pistole was a Spanish gold coin …
April 16, 2020

154. Recovering the Founding Legacy of Dr. Benjamin Rush with Stephen Fried

In 1793, the dreaded Yellow Fever swept through Philadelphia. The deadly virus raced through the nation’s capital between August and November, killing at least 5,000 of the city’s inhabitants. Among the multi-racial group of…
April 9, 2020

153. Putting Secession and Jefferson Davis on Trial with Cynthia Nicoletti

In May 1865, Union forces captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Irwinville, Georgia as the Civil War neared its end. Davis had led the Confederate States of America since 1861. He was taken to Fortress Monroe in …
April 2, 2020

152. Creating George Washington's Cabinet with Lindsay Chervinsky

There are many things that we take for granted in the modern United States. The president’s cabinet is one of them. Although the cabinet is a prominent fixture of the federal government, and a powerful and essential one at t…
March 26, 2020

151. Going Timbering and Turtling in the Caribbean with Mary Draper

Three hundred years ago, timber and turtles were key commodities for English settlers on Barbados and Jamaica . Barbadians sailed northwest to the island of St. Lucia where they harvested timber while Jamaicans headed to the…