Mount Vernon talks with award-winning authors about the 18th century and George Washington's life and legacy.
Todd Andrlik
Todd Andrlik is the author and editor of Reporting the Revolutionary War, an award-winning look at the impact that newspapers had on the Revolutionary War period.
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Rick Atkinson
Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson is a best-selling author and former Washington Post journalist. His book The British are Coming won the 2020 George Washington Prize.
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Richard Bell
2020 George Washington Prize Finalist Richard Bell discusses his book Stolen: Five Free Boys Stolen into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home.
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Dr. Mary Sarah Bilder
Dr. Mary Sarah Bilder, Professor of Law at Boston College Law School, discuss Eliza Harriet Barons O'Connor’s role in women’s education.
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Warren L. Bingham
This Q&A with author Warren Bingham explores the remarkable and challenging 1791 tour that President Washington made through the Southern states.
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Nick Bunker
Nick Bunker, author of Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity, discusses Franklin's arrival in Philadelphia just over 50 years before America's Declaration of Independence.
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Ron Chernow
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Ron Chernow, author of best-selling biographies of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, discusses the relationship between the two founding fathers.
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Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky
Presidential Historian Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky is author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution.
Alexis Coe
Alexis Coe, author of "You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington," discusses the many diseases George Washington endured during his lifetime.
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Matthew R. Costello
2020 George Washington Prize Finalist Matthew R. Costello discusses his book The Property of the Nation: George Washington’s Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President.
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Douglas Egerton
2020 George Washington Prize Finalist Douglas Egerton discusses his book Heirs of an Honored Name: The Decline of the Adams Family and the Rise of Modern America.
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Joseph Ellis
Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Ellis is one of the nation's leading scholars of American history.
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Dr. Cassandra Good
Dr. Cassandra Good, assistant professor of history at Marymount University, explores what it was like for Martha Washington's children and grandchildren to grow up at Mount Vernon.
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Richard Godbeer
2020 George Washington Prize Finalist Richard Godbeer discusses his book World of Trouble: A Philadelphia Quaker Family’s Journey through the American Revolution.
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Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf
Renowned historians Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf came to Mount Vernon as part of the Michelle Smith Lecture Series to discuss their joint work, Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination.
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Michael Harris
Michael Harris, author of Brandywine: A Military History of the Battle that Lost Philadelphia but Saved America, September 11, 1777 shares his views about the Brandywine Campaign and its importance to the American Revolution.
read the interviewDr. Lawrence Hatter
Dr. Lawrence B.A. Hatter, associate professor of early American history at Washington State University, discussed the fluidity of the U.S.-Canadian border during the 18th and 19th centuries.
David Head
2020 George Washington Prize Finalist David Head discusses his book A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution.
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Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone
Their book Fatal Sunday: George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle is the definitive account of this important, but often overlooked, Revolutionary War campaign in New Jersey.
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Dr. Joyce Lindorff
Dr. Joyce Lindorff's current research focuses on late 18th-century keyboard instruments and home music-making, specifically cultural and expressive aspects of the harpsichord purchased by George Washington for Nelly Custis. She was one of the first to play Mount Veron's reproduction of Nelly Parke Custis’s harpsichord.
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Dr. Joseph Manca
The author of George Washington's Eye: Landscape, Architecture, and Design at Mount Vernon discusses Washington's discerning eye for design.
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Dr. James Kirby Martin
Dr. James Kirby Martin is a nationally recognized scholar on the Revolutionary War period and is the author of Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary War Hero: An American Warrior Reconsidered.
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Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy
The author of The Men Who Lost America discusses the many challenges facing Britain and its military during the Revolutionary War. This book was selected as the George Washington Book Prize winner in 2014.
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Robert Paulett
Robert Paulett, Associate Professor of American History at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, explores 18th-century maps.
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Nathaniel Philbrick
Pulitzer-prize winning author Nathaniel Philbrick discusses his books In the Hurricane's Eye which examines the year leading up to the victory at Yorktown and Valiant Ambition, which looks at the relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold.
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David L. Preston
David L. Preston discusses his book Braddock's Defeat, an account of Major-General Edward Braddock's 1755 campaign and the fateful Battle of the Monongahela, in which George Washington participated.
Read the InterviewMartha Saxton
2020 George Washington Prize finalist Martha Saxton discusses her book The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington.
Dr. Craig Bruce Smith
Dr. Craig Bruce Smith, Assistant Professor of History at the William Woods University, explores honor in Colonial America.
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Mark Tabbert
Mark Tabbert, Director of Collections at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association in Alexandria, VA., discuss Freemasonry in early American history.
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Mary Thompson
Meet Mount Vernon's Research Historian Mary V. Thompson and read interviews with the historian about her most recent books.
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Literary Award
The George Washington Prize
The George Washington Prize recognizes the year's best works on the nation's founding era. Click to learn more and to see all past winners and nominees.
Conversations at the Washington Library
A weekly podcast about early American history and the people who teach it.
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