In this episode of Leadership and Legacy, Brook Manville, author of The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives, discusses the concept of leadership in a democracy. He emphasizes that democracy is fundamentally a bargain, a sy…
This podcast episode features an interview with Dr. Colleen Shogan, the director of the National Archives and Records Administration. Dr. Shogan discusses the importance of effective leadership and communication, particularl…
In this episode of Leadership and Legacy, General David Petraeus and historian Andrew Roberts discuss the art of leadership, drawing from their book Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine. They explore the t…
In this episode of Leadership and Legacy, Dr. Patrick Spero interviews General John Allen, a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general, about his views on leadership. General Allen defines leadership as the means to accomp…
In this episode of Leadership and Legacy, Representatives Steve Womack and Pat Ryan, two elected officials on opposite sides of the aisle, discuss their views on leadership. They emphasize the importance of integrity, direct…
In this episode of Leadership and Legacy, Dr. Patrick Spero interviews Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard. She discusses her experiences at AT&T and HP, highlighting the challenges of leading change within large or…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Why is the way that we remember the past oftentimes different than historical reality? And how can we use public history to inform conversations in the present about events that took place centuries earlier? On today’s episo…
In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the British Empire began dismantling the slave system that had helped to build it. Parliament banned the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, and in 1833 the government outlawed …
In May 1787, George Washington arrived in Philadelphia to attend the Constitutional Convention. One afternoon, as he waited for the other delegates to show up so the convention could begin, Washington accompanied some ladies…
We're delighted to bring you one of the bonus episodes from our other podcast, Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon . In Intertwined Stories , we're featuring extended interviews with some …
The Battle of Saratoga in September and October of 1777 was a decisive turning point in the American War for Independence. The American victory over the British in northern New York put a stopper to London’s dreams of a swif…
Hannah Lawrence Schieffelin was an American poet who rhymed about some of the most important issues facing the early United States in the eighteenth century, including the British occupation of New York City during the Ameri…
If you had been alive in eighteenth-century America, you would've had little opportunity for formal schooling or an advanced education. Unless you were among the elite or at least of some means, your chances of attending a l…
For years after the ratification of the Constitution, Americans debated how the Federal Government and the several states should relate to each other, and work together, to form a more perfect union. The success, if not the …
In the 1760s, tobacco was one of Virginia’s chief exports. But George Washington turned away from the noxious plant and began dreaming of wheat and a more profitable future. Washington became enamored with new ideas powering…
In the 18th and 19th centuries, North Americans looked up at the sky in wonder at the cosmos and what lay beyond earth’s atmosphere. But astronomers like Benjamin Banneker, Georgia surveyors, Cherokee storytellers, and gover…
When delegates assembled in Philadelphia in the Summer of 1787 to write a new Constitution, they spent months in secret writing a document they hoped would form a more perfect Union. When we talk about the convention, we oft…
For most Americans, Thomas Paine is the radical Englishman, and former tax collector, who published Common Sense in early 1776. His claim that hereditary monarchy was an absurdity and that the “cause of America was in great …