Library Events & Programs

Bring your lunch and learn about Library Fellow Luca Irwin Fragale's research project, Freemasonry and its places along the George Washington milieu. 

Using the resources at the George Washington Presidential Library, Fragale is researching the history of Freemasonry at the time of George Washington.

Join us for lunch and a compelling discussion with Christopher F. Minty, managing editor and project director of Naval Documents of the American Revolution at the Center for Digital Editing, University of Virginia. In this talk, Minty will discuss the Navy’s origins and influence on the Revolution’s global reach.

This event is part of the Washington Library's Lunch at the Library series. Lunch will be provided.

Bring your lunch and learn about Library Fellow Timothy C. Hemmis's research project, A Man Caught In Between: Mapping, Espionage, and the Life of the Geographer of the United States, Thomas Hutchins, 1730-1790. 

Using the resources at the George Washington Presidential Library, Hemmis is researching the life and impact of Thomas Hutchins.

Hear from historian Lauren Duval, author of The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence.

This book is a look at the American Revolution told from inside the home. Building on a stunning wealth of primary sources, Duval vividly captures daily life during the Revolution through the eyes and ears of those who intimately experienced it, showing how men and women of all races, statuses, and states of freedom understood its implications for their lives, families, and the nascent American Republic.

Attendees will have the opportunity to submit questions and have their books signed.

Bring your lunch and learn about Library Fellow Ywone Edwards-Ingram's research project, Coachmen in Slavery and Freedom: The Convergence of Work and Display. 

Using the resources at the George Washington Presidential Library, Edwards-Ingram is researching George Washington’s coachmen as part of her broader study of the enslaved and free individuals who worked with coaches, carriages, and horses.

Join us for lunch and a compelling discussion with George D. Oberle on his book Creating an Informed Citizenry: Knowledge and Democracy in the Early American Republic. In this book, Oberle examines the early debates in the United States over how best to educate the constituents of the new nation.

This event is part of the Washington Library's Lunch at the Library series. Lunch will be provided.

Bring your lunch and learn about Library Fellow Arya Martinez's research project, The Turbulent Confederation: The Bank of North America and the Emergence of a New National Economy. 

Using the resources at the George Washington Presidential Library, Martinez is researching the debates and controversies over the Bank of North America from the end of the American Revolution until George Washington’s first administration.

Bring your lunch and learn about Library Fellow Jennifer Van Horn's research project, Base Metal: Iron, Enslavement, and Insurgence in the Early United States. 

Using the resources at the George Washington Presidential Library, Horn is researching the relationships between iron production, its use, and enslaved people of African origin and descent to recover iron as an insurgent material in the late colonial period and early republic.

Hear from historian Alec Zuercher Reichardt, author of Roads to Power, Roads to Crisis: The War for the American Interior and the Infrastructural Routes of Revolution.

This book examines how British imperial infrastructure in the American interior fueled both imperial expansion and the American Revolution. 

Attendees will have the opportunity to submit questions and have their books signed.

Join us for a special tasting of an 18th-century macaroni and cheese recipe and a compelling conversation with Karima Moyer-Nocchi as she shares insights from her new book, The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America.

Moyer-Nocchi traces the iconic dish’s extraordinary journey across cultures and centuries, revealing how a simple combination of pasta and cheese became intertwined with questions of race, class, and national identity. For this presentation, she will offer an overview of the dish’s long international history while taking a deeper dive into the 18th century—the culinary world of George Washington’s era and the transatlantic exchanges that shaped it.

Lunch will accompany the tasting.

Hear from historian Jordan B. Smith, author of The Invention of Rum: Creating the Quintessential Atlantic Commodity.

This new book explores the complex history of rum, from its production to its consumption, and from its origins in the Caribbean to its impact on the Atlantic world. 

Attendees will have the opportunity to sample authentic 18th-century rum punch, submit questions and have their books signed.