From the mansion to lush gardens and grounds, intriguing museum galleries, immersive programs, and the distillery and gristmill. Spend the day with us!
The Library frequently hosts a variety of dynamic events, welcoming established scholars, leaders, and experts from numerous fields.
Upcoming Events
Transatlantic Slavery Symposium
This symposium aims to bring together scholars from both sides of the Atlantic to address the lasting impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade through panel discussions on themes ranging from its historical foundations and development in the Revolutionary Atlantic world to the current best practices in the museums and heritage sector.
Transatlantic Abolition and Law: Monday, August 9, 2021, 12:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. GMT
Constitutions and Slavery: Tuesday, August 10, 2021, 12:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. GMT
Capitalism and Slavery: Wednesday, August 11, 2021, 12:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. GMT
Keynote Public Programming and Interpreting Slavery in the Founding Era: Wednesday, August 11, 2021, 2:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. GMT
Public Memory and Oral History: Friday, August 13, 2021, 12:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. GMT
The Transatlantic Slavery Symposium is a joint venture between the Robert H. Smith Scholarship Centre at Benjamin Franklin House in London, the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
Mount Vernon welcomes author Christopher Pearl to the Smith Auditorium to discuss his new book Conceived in Crisis: The Revolutionary Creation of an American State on Thursday, August 19, 2021.
Join us for an official book launch with award-winning author Nathaniel Philbrick.
He and the Washington Library's Executive Director, Kevin Butterfield will discuss Philbrick's new book, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy.
The in-person event ($50 ticket) includes a copy of the book and a reception and book signing with the author. You can also attend virtually ($40 ticket) and receive a signed copy of the book by mail.
This year’s exciting program will explore why civic education was so important to America's Founding generation and what we are learning in the twenty-first century about how we should prepare students for a lifetime of citizenship. This event will be followed by a reception.
The Founding Debates are sponsored by The Ammerman Family Foundation to honor former Mount Vernon President and CEO James C. Rees, whose vision lives on with the Washington Library.
The 2022 Mount Vernon Symposium will take place on June 3-5.
Join leading gardeners, historians, horticulturists, archaeologists, and preservationists as they reconsider the importance of gardening, landscapes, and design in early America. Learn how Washington and his contemporaries shaped the natural world to achieve beauty through gardening, profited through agriculture, and conveyed civic values through landscape design—and how these historic methods remain relevant in today’s world. Revisit long-lost gardens, explore contemporary creations inspired by the past, and come face-to-face with the most authentic 18th-century plantation landscape in the United States.
The Mount Vernon Symposium is endowed by the generous support of The Robert H. Smith Family Foundation and Lucy S. Rhame.
