About

Leadership and Legacy: Conversations at the George Washington Presidential Library is a new podcast from the Center for Digital History at the George Washington Presidential Library. The series is an interview format show featuring prominent leaders from a variety of fields and historians in conversation with the Executive Director of the library.

Guests are asked to reflect on their growth, challenges, and innovative approaches that made them the leaders that they are today, as well as how these questions can be informed by the past — in particular the lessons and legacy of George Washington.

This feed also contains an archive of Conversations at the Washington Library, the Washington Library's older interview format show featuring talks with scholars, digital humanists, librarians, and other guests about Washington's era and the way we tell stories about the past. Conversations ran from 2016 to 2023 and was hosted by Dr. Jim Ambuske, Dr. Kevin Butterfield, Dr. Joseph Stoltz, Dr. Douglas Bradburn, and Jeanette Patrick, among others.

About the Hosts

Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky

Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky is the new Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library and a historian of the presidency, political culture, and the government. She produces history that speaks to fellow scholars as well as a larger public audience. Dr. Chervinsky has published two books, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution (Harvard University Press, 2020), and her latest one, Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic (Oxford Press, 2024). She also co-edited Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture (University of Virginia Press, 2023). Dr. Chervinsky is the creator of the Audible course: The Best and Worst Presidential Cabinets in U.S. History. Her research can be found in publications from op-eds to books, speaking on podcasts and other media, and teaching for every kind of audience.

Dr. Patrick Spero

Dr. Patrick Spero is the former Executive Director of the Washington Library. A scholar of early American history, Dr. Spero specializes in the era of the American Revolution.