118. Finding George Washington in Scotland with Rachel Hosker

How did a George Washington letter find a home Scotland? In this episode of Conversations at the Washington Library, Jim Ambuske talks with Rachel Hosker, deputy head of special collections and archives manager at the University Edinburgh Library about a document that connects Washington to Adam Ferguson, one of the major figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. Recorded in Edinburgh at the library's Centre for Research Collections, Ambuske and Hosker also look over Washington's Political Legacies, a book published in New York in the months just after Washington's death. They also discuss Hosker's early fascination with manuscripts and rare books and the university library's amazing collections. Haste ye back!

About Our Guest:

Rachel Hosker is Deputy Head of Special Collections and Archives Manager at the University of Edinburgh. Whilst making the collections available to staff, students and the wider community, she has also been known to perform in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival talking about her work. She has worked for Universities, Businesses, government and in consultancy and served on national and international archival advisory groups.

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.