Leadership and Legacy: Conversations at the George Washington Presidential Library

Early Americans like George Washington obsessed over genealogy. Much was at stake. One's place on the family tree could mean the difference between inheriting a plantation like Mount Vernon and its enslaved community, or working a patch of hardscrabble. Genealogy was very much a matter of custom, culture, and law, which explains in part why Washington composed a long-ignored document tracing his own lineage. It was as much a reflection of his family's past as it was a road map to his future power, wealth, and authority. On today's episode, Dr. Karin Wulf helps us understand the powerful force that genealogy played in early American life. Wulf is a Professor of History at the College of William & Mary where she is also the director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture (OI). A recent Washington Library research fellow, Wulf is writing a history of genealogy's essential role in British American society.  She also discusses the OI's leadership in the Georgian Papers Programme, and the OI's work to explore #vastearlyamerica.  About Our Guest: Karin Wulf is the director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, which has been publishing the William and Mary Quarterly, the leading journal in early American scholarship, and books with the University of North Carolina Press, since 1943. She is also Professor of History at the College of William & Mary, and co-chair the College’s Neurodiversity Working Group. Her scholarship focuses on women, gender and family in the early modern British Atlantic. 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.

The podcast team is off for the holidays. We'll be back in the new year with new thought-provoking interviews with the likes of Jeanette Patrick, Karin Wulf, and Max Edelson. In the meantime, be sure to check out our full back catalog featuring conversations with historians, teachers, prize-winning authors, game designers, and much more. From all of us at the Washington Library, we wish you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year! 

What does the American Revolution look like from a British vantage point? How does that change the way we think about the origins of the United States, and major figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or George III? And in the new republic, how did Jefferson try to keep the revolution alive through his ideas on education. On today’s episode, Dr. Andrew O’Shaughnessy helps us explore these questions. O’Shaughnessy is a historian of the American Revolution. He is also the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. The ICJS is one of the premier institutes for the study of the American Revolution and the early Republic. In 2014, O’Shaughnessy was awarded the George Washington Book Prize for his book, The Men who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of Empire. He is currently at work on a book about Thomas Jefferson and his vision for education in the early United States. We recorded our conversation at ICJS, just down the mountain from Monticello, and as you’ll hear, O’Shaughnessy oversees a major educational enterprise. About Our Guest: Andrew O’Shaughnessy is Vice President of Monticello, the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and Professor of History at the University of Virginia.  He is the author of An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000).  His most recent book The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013) received eight national awards including the New York Historical Society American History Book Prize, the George Washington Book Prize, and the Society of Military History Book Prize.   About Our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

On October 2, 1780, Major John André was executed as a spy on George Washington’s orders. The British officer had convinced American general Benedict Arnold to switch allegiances, but having been caught in the act, André was condemned to die a spy's death. He was hung from the gallows like a common criminal, having been denied the honor of facing a firing squad, like an officer and a gentleman. He took comfort in the fact that it would “be but a momentary pang.” While you may know André best for bagging Arnold, and meeting his death bravely, you may not know the whole story. André was involved in the world of secret warfare – of gathering intelligence, seducing his way into private company, and using personal relationships and acquired information to Britain’s military advantage. On today’s episode, Dr. D.A.B. Ronald introduces us to André – a highly educated and cultured young man skilled in the arts of treachery and war. About Our Guest: Dr D. A. B. Ronald has published several books, including Young Nelsons: Boy Soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars (2009), and Youth, Heroism and War Propaganda: Britain and the Young Maritime Hero 1754–1820 (2015). Prior to becoming an academic and full-time writer, he ran his own company as an investment banker in the City of London. His most recent book is The Life of John André: The Redcoat Who Turned Benedict Arnold (2019). About Our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

Dr. Nadine Zimmerli recently joined The University of Virginia Press as its editor of History and Social Sciences books. A former editor at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, Zimmerli is a historian of 20th century Europe by training. She is also a native of Germany, having grown up in East Germany in the years surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall.  In this episode, Dr. Zimmerli shares with Jim Ambuske what it was like to grow up in East Germany before reunification in 1990 and how her family's own history inspired her professional career as a historian and editor. You'll also hear how she knew from a young age that she wanted to be an editor, her sense of the big questions that have shaped and reshaped our understanding of the early American past., and the opportunities she sees at the UVA Press.  About Our Guest: Dr. Nadine Zimmerli is the Editor of History and Social Sciences at The University of Virginia Press. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and began her editorial career at the University of Wisconsin Press as a project assistant for the George L. Mosse Series in Modern European Cultural and Intellectual History. Previously, she was Associate Editor of Books at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, where she edited award-winning books such as Susanah Shaw Romney’s New Netherland Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic Ties in Seventeenth-Century America, and Robert G. Parkinson’s The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American 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.

We’re off this week for the Thanksgiving holiday. We’ll be back next week with conversations featuring some of the leading lights in early American history. But we didn’t want to leave you holding the short end of the wishbone. So we put together a short history lesson for you about George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789.  Be sure to read the full proclamation and Professor T. K. Bryon's Digital Encyclopedia entry on the history behind it.  Happy Thanksgiving! 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.

If you know anything about Rachel Jackson, chances are you know her best as Andrew Jackson’s wife. You might also know that Rachel died in late 1828, just before Andrew became president.  During Andrew’s presidential campaigns in 1824 and 1828, his political enemies attacked Rachel as an adulterer. Legally speaking, she was. In the early 1790s, Rachel and Andrew learned that her first husband, Lewis Robards, had never finalized their divorce. The Jacksons’ marriage was seemingly illegitimate. After a court granted Robards a divorce in 1794 on the basis of Rachel’s alleged adultery, Rachel and Andrew married again just to be safe. But when these private events became public years later, Andrew’s opponents used them against him. Rachel died from a heart attack in 1828. Andrew attributed her death in part to the public slanders against her.  What you may not know is that Rachel dwelled deeply on God Almighty. While she labored in his Kingdom on Earth, she dreamed of the Almighty and his Kingdom of Heaven. Rachel was an evangelical Christian. And her fear of God’s judgement shaped her life and her relationship with Andrew. On today’s episode, Dr. Melissa Gismondi offers us a portrait of a devote woman tormented by the changing world around here. Gismondi, an expert on Rachel Jackson and the early republic, is a Senior Producer on the popular radio program Backstory.  About our Guest: Melissa Gismondi, Ph.D., is a senior producer for Backstory, a program of Virginia Humanities. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia. An award-winning writer and multimedia journalist, Gismondi's work has appeared in The Walrus and The New York Times. In 2019, she was selected by acclaimed author Charlotte Gray and the Writers’ Trust of Canada to be part of their inaugural Rising Star program. About our Host: Jim Ambuske, Ph.D. leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, Ambuske graduated from the University of Virginia in 2016. He is a former Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library. At UVA Law, Ambuske co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.  He is currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson criticized George III for "Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us" in the years before the American Revolution. To hear Jefferson tell it, quartered troops had long been a problem in early America. In this episode, Dr. John McCurdy of Eastern Michigan University reveals how the history of accommodating troops in North America is more complicated than you might think. Far from being an objectionable practice that motivated Americans to revolt against the British, colonists accepted that quartering soldiers was a necessary and even welcome event under certain conditions. McCurdy, who is the author of the new book, Quarters: The Accommodation of the British Army and the Coming of the American Revolution, will reshape what you know about the relationship between soldiers, civilians, and space in the era of the American Revolution.  About our Guest: John McCurdy, Ph.D. specializes in colonial and Revolutionary America, gender and LGBTQ history, and the Atlantic world. His research examines the connections between social and political history in eighteenth-century North America. He is the author of Citizen Bachelors: Manhood and the Creation of the United States, which examines how ideas about marital status in the colonial era gave rise to American citizenship. His most recent book, Quarters: The Accommodation of the British Army and the Coming of the American Revolution, explores how debates over military power shaped notions of place in Revolutionary America. 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.

How has technology changed the way that historians and educators tell stories about the past? What does it mean to do "digital history" and how can one get started?  On today's episode, Dr. Loren Moulds of the University of Virginia Law Library sits down with Jim Ambuske to explore how technology is enhancing our ability to interpret the past. A historian of 20th century America, Moulds's work on backyard barbecues and federal housing policy shapes the way he thinks about the role technology can play to recover hidden voices from obscure sources. You'll hear about the Law Library's latest projects, including those that deal with early America, and others that reveal some of the darkest moments of the 20th century.  About our Guest: Loren Moulds leads the University of Virginia Law Library's efforts to develop online research tools and to promote, create and preserve its digital collections. Moulds received his bachelor's in English and American studies from Kalamazoo College in 2004 and earned a Ph.D. in History at the University of Virginia. He served as the director of the Project for Technology in History Education at the University of Virginia's Corcoran Department of History as well as the technology coordinator for UVA's Digital Classroom Initiative. 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.

Historians spend a lot of time thinking about audience. Whether speaking at academic meetings, talking with the general public, or teaching students, we consider how we can best communicate our ideas to different groups.  So how do we write the history of Early America for a much younger crowd? In a world full of hungry caterpillars and pigeons eager to drive city buses, how do we communicate the complexity of the past to children? Author David Bruce Smith sits down with Jim Ambuske to discuss his new book, Abigail & John, a portrait of the famous Adams couple from Massachusetts. The inaugural volume in "The Grateful American Book Series," Abigail and John features illustrations by Clarice Smith, David's mother, to tell the story of one of the most important partnerships in American history.  About our Guest: David Bruce Smith is the author of 12 books, and founder of the Grateful American™ Foundation, which is restoring enthusiasm about American history–for kids and adults–through videos, podcasts, and interactive activities. The Grateful American™ Book Prize promotes excellence in adolescent historical fiction and non-fiction that is focused on the United States since the country’s founding. In 2019 he launched The Grateful American Book Series; a series of children’s books about historical couples that were–in actuality–partnerships. 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.