221. Reading the Political Poetry of Hannah Lawrence Schieffelin with Dr. Kait Tonti
Conversations at the Washington Library
Release Date: 03/09/2022
NOW AVAILABLE: Inventing the Presidency
Conversations at the Washington Library
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 at the Constitutional Convention to Washington’s final warnings in his Farewell Address, we will break down how one man shaped the Presidency—and the many times that it could have all fallen apart.
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229. A Final Conversation with Dr. James Ambuske
Conversations at the Washington Library
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 at the George Washington Podcast Network.
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228. Editing the Adams Family Papers with Dr. Sara Georgini
Conversations at the Washington Library
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 central to the development of the history profession.
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227. Welcoming a Deserving Brother with Mark Tabbert
Conversations at the Washington Library
In 1752, George Washington joined the Masonic Lodge in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was just twenty years old.
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226. Cross-examining Washington's Heir with Prof. Gerard Magliocca
Conversations at the Washington Library
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 Martha Washington passed away in 1802.
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225. Doing Public History with Dr. Anne Fertig
Conversations at the Washington Library
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?
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224. Unpacking the Slave Empire with Dr. Padraic Scanlan
Conversations at the Washington Library
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 slavery itself, accomplishing through legislative action what the United States would later achieve in part by the horrors of civil war. Abolition has long been a cause célèbre in the British imagination, with men like William Wilberforce receiving credit for moving the empire to ri
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223. Attending a Lecture on Female Genius with Dr. Mary Sarah Bilder
Conversations at the Washington Library
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 to a public lecture at the University of Pennsylvania by a woman named Eliza Harriot Barons O’Conner. Eliza Harriot, as she signed her name, had led a transatlantic life steeped in revolutionary ideas. On that May afternoon she argued in favor of the radical notion of Female Genius
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Introducing Intertwined Stories: Finding Hercules Posey
Conversations at the Washington Library
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.
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222. Winning a "Compleat Victory" at Saratoga with Dr. Kevin Weddle
Conversations at the Washington Library
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 swift end to the war, and convinced the French to openly declare their support for the colonial rebels. It was, in the words of one American participant, a "Compleat Victory."
info_outlineHannah 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 American Revolution, the debate over the gradual abolition of slavery in the early days of the republic, and the legacy of George Washington.
Schieffelin sat at the heart of the New York literary scene in these years, but until recently, most of her manuscript poetry remained undigitized and inaccessible to readers.
Thanks to Dr. Kait Tonti and her colleagues at the New York Public Library, now you can read Schieffelin’s poetry, too.
Tonti is an expert on early American women's life-writing and poetry. She was also the 2021 Omohundro Institute-Mount Vernon Digital Collections Fellow, which supported the digitization of Schieffelin’s poetry.
She joins Jim Ambuske today to talk about Schieffelin’s life and the politics of her poetry, especially her poetical confrontation over slavery and Washington’s reputation with a mysterious opponent who may not be so mysterious after all.
View Schieffelin's manuscripts at the New York Public Library here.
View Tonti's digital exhibit here.