next, on the presidency. adrian hear from harrison. and about how the first commander and chief inspired her. the library in mount vernon hurston -- posted this hour-long program. host: good evening. library and i would like to welcome c-span here as well tonight. this is our four evening. . we're thankful to be sponsored by the ford motor company. we like to see that. that is what we see right there. it was built before that by the washington family. course, the association has so thated this property theyone can learn about life and lessons of george washington. they are a privately funded institution and it is part of the mission to help people everywhere learn about the principles of the founding. tonight is perfect for what we do. to haveeally excited this special presentation for you. please welcome adrienne harrison. she is a graduate of west point who later went on to earn her phd degrees from rutgers university. she has been an assistant professor at west point. she served as 12 years as a commissioned officer in the u.s. army including three combat tour is in iraq. she brings a certain amount of experience to this project. she will talk to you a little bit about how personal it is for her to explore the life of george washington in this way. she is here tonight to talk about her great new book. she is doing exactly what we would like to do in mount vernon. not the person that is just a marble statue although we love the great icon of george washington. we want to recognize that he was a human who lived in the world. it was through his mind. we do have a chance to have .uestions from the audience have made a special effort tonight to bring out some of the items from his library and you in the holy tour it of holies. you will get a chance to get in there behind the scenes. and it special evening is this an exciting one. everyone give a big hand. [applause] adrienne: good evening everyone. it is a privileged to be here i wasn't expecting that so thank you for having me and for allowing me to indulge you in one of the biggest things i have ever done. i just want to say by info of why i gave this talk. i was on facebook and when i was was the same day where i received this invitation and saw a suggested ad pop up. like mark zuckerberg's minions are figuring out what you want to purchase on who you are and what your interests are. happens, there was an ad and have youp never heard of it, it is a company that makes military clothes. it was this particular ad that got my attention. it had a picture on it of george the delawareossing river. underneath this green printing it said one single phrase, get some. the tagline was what, a attention because it said, if you insult george washington in a dream you had better wake up. total stud. it struck me when i saw this because this is why i wrote this book. these swaggering g.i. joe type terms. .e is the myth he is the guy that is in a painting. he is at now to us, he is two soensional and far removed there has to be a way to make him a real person again. for me, it was something that was intensely personal. i-8 interest in washington going back to my childhood. it was something that had stayed all the way up to when i was an undergraduate. it was something that i carried with me in the arm. brand-newwhen i was a second lieutenant. old and there i was. thearmy stories start with quote, there i was. i was in the 82nd airborne on the first stage of operation iraqi freedom. -- i was inves of baghdad where we ended up after the invasion and it struck me after one mission that we had that after we got back, we had barely debated an ambush. the traffic in washington dc does not compare to what you see over there. it was one of those experiences that you are drained afterwards. it hit me, how did washington do this? did he experienced armed combat for the first time. here i am in the rack and my mind randomly goes back. needs a bit of a mental escape. the days and nights all started to blend together so you needed something that was going to get you through so you could face the next day. for me, it was reading. i had a steady stream of books sent to me. one of my old thesis advisors who i've actually spoken here as well. he sent me all the latest books on george washington so he kept his example. i was thinking about washington and how did he do it? although we were separated by more than two centuries and vastly different circumstances, there were some similarities. i was a little bit older than he was when he let his first troops that he and i both had very limited or no professional experience at that point. when we were given the opportunity to lead and so ouramentally i thought response must have been fundamentally the same in some level. then the comparison had to stop. benefit of west point education behind me. militaryensive training. that that could undergird my consequence. he was younger than me and has some fencing lessons. that was it. 's actual execution did not go well. let's just say that. bravelyading his troops onpicks the absolute worst how you could put a fortification. ever nothing but trees. that wasn't going to go well. beyond the stress of his orders. he started those seven years war. regard different in that lessonn we had the first that we had. in a positionlf where he did not have the professional training to set up the fortification. the language of his energy -- enemy. firefight, he had no control when these four frenchmen who have been mortally wounded. him, theydescended on were pleading for their lives in french. control he vowed at that point that he was not going to make the same mistake again. i won't belabor it. him buts nothing about said future father of the nation. there was nothing about that. leadingharged with these officers who also had no experience. he said something pathetic. having no opportunity to learn from example, let us read. he was exposed in the british benefitthe professional of reading. he didn't have the benefit of a formal education that he was going to go out there and do the best he could. that was something that stuck with me. that he was lucky as a leader. even though i had more of an education was something that i took to heart. this question of how did he do it. this.d he turn into there is a part of the leg and of the steelycy eyed charger. there is a reason why we remember him that way. it than just to that he was a tall guy who looks good in a uniform. i got to go back to school and i was going to make my mark on the world. i said that i had an idea. i want to write about how george washington fashioned himself. and he said, that's a terrible idea. [laughter] there was a grain of truth in what he was saying. the challenge facing any washington historian is what else is there to say about this man? he is the most talked about in the world. to ae going to go bookstore and find something on george washington there. was told to go back to the drawing board and try again. i keptndaunted and how this idea. i was going to convince them that this was a viable product. he was actually in a different brass doors that i was exposed to this book and it is about the politics of reading in early modern england. it focuses on a guy named sir who was aake political operative that learned figure of being a public through reading. it was something about what he had argued. wasaid that reading essentially something that is political and it is specific to time and places. we think about our own reading and that is pretty much true for all of us. predilections, our beliefs figure into that. forth the idea that reading is useful and practical. i thought about a different book about washington. in that, i found an opportunity. he included an appended to his book. something where he said that washington the reader was but not really all that bright. he is not that much of it intellectual. i'm sure if you are, he would argue that with me. that is the fun of being a historian, we debate rings. saidg what sharp what politicaling being and practical knowledge that you can apply to your civic task force in front of you. there was my opportunity for the dissertation. i wanted to look at washington and how he did this self fashioning and presentations by looking at his reading. you will not find a whole lot of biographies that talk about it to any great extent. many of them tend to be dismissive of his reading efforts because he is not something that we see. we remember the guy on the charger and here is the books are under the table. it looks like he would rather not in this picture. that was my idea and i was able to sell it -- sell that to my advisor. how you approach that? so what, what he do about it? i started with this 1799 inventory that was her hired by law when he passed away. when he passed away, there were over 900 volumes and 1200 different works that were there. everything ranging from history to mass. political pamphlets and the like. 900 volumes, that is a lot. off that, what did he read? about that, whether you have real bookshelves. we all have books on our shelves the we've never read it book that some well-intentioned person gave you as a gift and you went thanks. bearing that in mind about it will tell you something about what you are. my shelves are almost all history. that is what i enjoy so you will find almost all history and not a science fiction title on there. it will tell you something about your priorities. minor history because i am trying to make a living out of it. it is less than 1% anything else. , why would that be different. --t is it that once more what is not there is also telling. have a lot of history, politics, military, agriculture .nd maybe it wasn't all that interesting. that caninformation get from that. how you get further? -- what i want to spend the rest my cap talking about. volumes and what do we know? notnow that washington did know any of language other than english. anything that was printed in a foreign language i excluded. quixote,s like don that is a good example. he actually got a copy. english translations are a little bit different in that was easy. this is where it gets hard. washington did not talk about reading. he rarely recommended reading to other people. allusionsw literary so how do we know what he read and what he didn't. you approach the idea of book ownership itself. books in the 18th century are luxury items. they are hard to come by especially in virginia. there is a printing press down there but they do not do a lot of book importing. he had to order his books during the colonial. from england so if you took the and to order it specifically order a certain title or addition. that means he intended to use it. i'm going to make that assumption because he is not going to line the shelves on red plastic. he never invited anyone into his store the study. books were hard to come by. another assumption i made is ,hat for the books that he had in 1799, the state counted everything in the house. books, ithington's was also counted. anything about women's literature, i assumed washington didn't have time for that. for his books, there were 397 volumes that had either his signature or both in them. you look at his signatures and if you go on a tour, you can see an example of this right in front of you. his signatures are meticulous. even though he went with a quote quill pen, with a everything was perfectly centered. haphazardlyt written. that, take the time to do that was something that was important to him. there are other books in their that the gifted books don't all have marks of ownership on them. we know they are his because they came with a letter. that, didn't bother to do he may not have even touched it. i narrowed it down by looking at that. now we have a smaller list and now this is approachable. when we do with that information? . had a choice to make i can either take a somatic what he had taking started and go into more depth. i could do that or i could take a chronological approach. that afterecided figuring out when and how he acquired them, i would do the chronological thing. in order to make sense of what washington red, i need to put it in the context of a wider world. there are only a handful of books that have his writing in them. he did not quote things verbatim in his writing. contextualizing him made the himerence and i could see when he first married martha and took possession of the library. inventory and it was made in his request. i had to compare against that the inventory that was made on his stepson's death. you guys at the siege of yorktown. i can balance that against the washington collection and see. inventory done in 1799, that was also a good one. i had thether at this auction catalog from when washing and library went up or sale around the time of the civil war. when that both went for auction, everything to do with washington was worth money. people were good at picking out the fakes. it was in everybody's interest to make sure this was right. it shows what specific volume has signatures on them and what had marginal note that. him,e book was given to some of the religious books that was givenhis mother to him. they had notes like that. that was my handbook going through this process. it was able to help me find where his books were. framework and i had to go about figuring out, let's put the books with the context of what he was doing. in that i learned something about the practicality of what he was doing. if you want to find his books now besides what is here in this library, some are scattered all over the place. the biggest concentration is in boston. --t is the subject subscription library if you're not familiar. ofy tried to collect as many washington's volumes as they could. a catalog and went to boston. manys given after provisions. i will give you a quick example of the relativism of them. i was reading one book by an exposition on the 39 articles of the church of england. page turner. [laughter] booknne harrison: it is a about how the church of england is organized. it is a church structure back. when washington came to possess this book, and it was in the early 1760's, so i am reading this book, it has gotten signature on it. there is really nothing else there. i reading it, and is dry. and i cannot find anything that was relevant that washington would have used. i am trying to approach these books as washington would have read them. what will he get from them that he will put into immediate use, because it seems to be what he has done with the things we know about him. i am this book, reading it, i am not getting anything. i am like, i made a mistake. i started to have a panic attack , this whole thing is going to fall apart. now i am only a third of the page -- way through, i keep going, and i see two glorious big thumbprints in the margins of the book, much bigger than mine, belonged to hands that were much bigger than mine. they were smudges and they were perfect. it is as if someone was holding the book up to the light, under the light, window, kendall, firelight. so book ownership, the oil on your hands, inc. staines, smudges, dirt, people did not wash their hands as much -- ink stains, people did not wash their hands as much. the nature of the party that they are printed on as well. i cannot prove these thumbprints like,s, but to me it was all right, these are here for a reason. somebody thought this page was interesting because they were gripping it. the page was about the andnization of bishoprics diocese in the church of england. i put in the context of what he was doing when he might have read this book. he was in the house of burgesses debating the twopenny acts about paying the salaries of parish priests in the established church of england here in virginia, and they were debating -- it was a hot and heavy debate other -- over whether virginia should petition the archbishop of canterbury for an archbishop for virginia. so understanding the organization of the church of england would have been immediately useful for washington. so my theory seems to be holding weight, so i persevered. when it comes to organization of the book, how do i approach it, knowing that is the method of how i added it -- how did i write the book, going in chronological method? i broke the chapters down into periods of time where there are certain transformational things that happened to him, starting off with his formative years. how did he enter into public life? what were the first things he read and why? how is reading interests changed over time. interests changed over time. a young militia officer in the seven years war, as soon as that your is over, he sets it aside. not until you going to be a general. what is it that was going on that contributed to his change of interest that he is suddenly finding military boarding -- boring? what was hugely important, now is not? he had moments where things would change, things, circumstances in his life would change, things would happen, new opportunities would open up. the first chapter concludes with the end of the seven years war, what he knows once and for all there is a british commission waiting for him. it is never going to happen. he is done. he is done with the military at that point. he will turn his attention to being the planter, the leader of colonial society. he marries martha. he is in the top stratosphere. he has got to know what he is talking about. he is a burgess and he is a vestry men. religion and politics are important. and closer to the revolution, he is a leading revolutionary. he is more committed to the idea of independence earlier on that his fellow founding fathers. certainly he does that faster than benjamin franklin, for example. it becomes clear he is becoming the commanding general of the .ommand -- continental army i don't know anything up being in an army, let's -- much less building one up from the ground. so there are pagans that sharkey commissioned the book buying agents in new york and philadelphia to buy up every military book they could find. everything. he was be a -- buying field manuals. things he would give the tenets and charges to read, -- we would give lieutenants and sergeants to read, it is reading as a general. he reads this on the fly as he is establishing a continental army, establishes doctrine, making time for it as he can. and then there is a political problem. how do you get soldiers to join the military and stay in? that is the perennial regrading question. now we don't worry about their pay. i don't have to worry about that, but back then, they had to. why would you join the army? you are not going to do it for pay or immediate benefit. you are not going to have shoes, being well-equipped or well fed. please join up and stay in. how do you do that? he starts getting clinical cap -- political pamphlets. he has thomas payne traveling with him. he starts collecting things like printed sermons, because every pulpit in america was politicized for or against the war. he used these sermons as a message to his troops. he required they go to divine service, as he calls it, every sunday, or they would hear sermons that reiterate from a different angle the reason why this cause is viable, why they should stay in and continue to serve. he starts to leverage these popular media, for lack of a better term, to his advantage as a leader. he is starting to learn how to harness the power of the printed word. so it really comes into play after the revolution with the confederation and his premises that his presidency. there is an interest personally but also what is going to happen to this confederation, government that really was not going well. he starts advising people on how to pick biographers, people to commemorate the great occasion of the war, and what that says about the american future, and how this history is told. we have letters were he is telling lafayette, advising him what he should do. you see he is starting to use books and media and print in a way that before was about getting the knowledge that is already there on the page. now he is trying to start controlling the message a little bit. so that was kind of an interesting maturation of washington's intellectual use of reading. a big president, there is challenge. who could imagine being the first president? people don't want to be president now. look at the current election. and a way that is shaping up. whatever your leanings are. but washington, you are first. how do you do that? how do you establish legitimacy of this office that you are in, of this government under a new constitution that everybody was on board with. how do you do that? that was all on him. inspection ofe the presidency, it is written with him in mind. he had to make that into something legitimate, authoritative, and sustainable. he was setting precedents for all that would come after him, and he knew that. so again, how does he do it? he chose to use public ceremony, goes on tours, very choreographed appearances. he is charting this path he believes bridges the gap between the monarchical path to great britain and this new american republic future they are starting to sketch out. he has that kind of bridge, and he is using ceremony to do it. ok, that is one way. but like any good politician knows, unit to know about how the people think about what you do. so he had to figure that out. 1790's, no opinion polls. none of that media moves slow. so you had newspapers. newspapers proliferated after the war ended, but during washington's administration, the media -- some media outlets started to turn against him. administration, and him personally. that was difficult to take. the national gazette, the aurora, attacking him as an individual. they would attack his family, and that is not something he could take. he distrusted newspapers. youk, you are washington, are doing this job. you don't know how people think, you can't trust newspapers, where else can you look to gauge public opinion? he looks back to what he has done in the revolution. printed sermons. ringtone sermons were a way to gauge the way people were from the cities, is a verse, where the stories were being written over and over again. ministers at the time were voices of their community. the pulpits, even when the american revolution ended, the pulpits do not cease to be politicized. they were still talking about politics. you see in washington's election, he started amassing all these sermons that cover every policy his administration had anything to do with, from the excise task -- hacks on whiskey, the planted in a affair, whether we get -- punches in a -- some are unfavorable, but they are more in his opinion, i think, more balanced than what he was getting from the newspapers. so it was a way to see how people in all different reaches of these new united states were reacting to his presidential performance, so to speak. on, and imoved concerned myself with the library, the physical structure of the library, and what does that tell us about what washington was doing in his approach to reading? looking at the reading he had done in his life, how is interests changed over time, there is a kind of emma well, where? what do we get out of that? a few things. he retired and came back to main garden -- mount vernon for his retirement. he was concerned what people would think about him and his legacy as long after he was gone. he knew there would be an enduring interest in him and everything he did. long after his death. he made an attempt to shape the record. he made plans for the construction of a separate building here at mount vernon that was going to be the receptacle for not just his books but also his papers and all of the copies of the different acts of congress, supreme court decisions, and sort of presidential proclamation, everything from the government that he led, the army that he led. he was asking his former cabinet officers who were serving in the adams administration to send copies. he would complete the record for what posterity would see. we historians would be the benefit of his book, his papers, but then, the official record. you see what is there, but i return to the idea of what was not there. those newspapers. those newspapers that he did not trust. you will not find those in washington's catalog. he did not keep them. that were notmons altogether, mentoring of his policies, but the newspapers, he does not. maybe he got rid of them himself. i mean, philip never failed to send him copies every day, but somehow they disappeared. one story maybe washington set up in a bit of rage, toss them, got rid of them. is that marthae cannot bear to have her husband read this stuff, so she burned them. we do not know exactly, but we know they are not there. moment is a telling about washington's life and what he expected people to think of him. he had a vested interest. he understood that books and print and media and were powerful things, were powerful things that would inform not just have people thought about him, but what people would think he andhe efforts that his public service and the country he helped to establish, he certainly hoped would succeed and survive. so, sadly, he passed away before the building happened, so we don't know. but it would have come out to essentially the nation's first presidential library. too bad it did not get built. it would have made this place look very different. but that is ok. it is coming along now. but then there is a study within mount vernon that was a part of washington's expansion project of the mansion, 1774. i am sure most of you, if not all of you, have been through the mansion on the flower him as as youre -- on the tour are. connects the study below, and washington's dressing room was off to the side, martha's was on the second floor. even the location in the house is telling, i think, about washington's attitude toward reading, his need for concentration, his need for privacy, because he did not want people to see he was studying, reading as much as he was. he did not want to get drawn into intellectual conversations he did not feel prepared for. he has to lead the founding fathers, and he knows he is not in the same league and qualifications as guys like jefferson, adams, randolph, all the rest of them. he did not want to get sucked in , so library saved him. there is no doorway that leads to that. you go through a series of doors on the first floor to get to it. it was a room his grandson, george washington parker who was raised here, said no one injured that permission. his attorneys to mount vernon never set foot in that library. if they were staying overnight, they would be provided an assortment of newspapers and magazines for their amusement. they were never allowed to go in there and take a book off the shelf, plot down and discuss it. that was not going to happen. so everything about that room, its placement, his design of it says this was something that was for him. you look at the furnishings in that room, is sparsely furnished. when you look at him, he was a sparsely furnished workspace for a neatly ordered mind. this is the place for him to work, he would go there every morning before dawn, up before everyone else. he would return their are several hours in the afternoon, and in the afternoon and evening before retiring. he would sort through his accounts, managing his estate, catching up on his correspondence. that was his private space that meant a great deal to him. so between the placement of the room and the way it was furnished, reading his approach to it, whether you talk about a book, a letter, whatever the case may be with something that was intensely private for him. when you look at his life, he was always conscious of what he called his defective education. so he did not -- that was his achilles' heel. what great leaders can do is that they know how to present themselves in a way that magnifies and place to their strengths and mitigates or minimizes their weaknesses. it does no good for anyone else around washington, that was working for him or serving him, to see his flaws, his nervousness with the fact that he always felt over on about the about the responsibility that he bore. what would that have done? what confidence would that have inspired? he was always in uncharted waters. he needed to give off the air of confidence. you don't display the fact that you don't read or write in foreign languages. you minimize that. you don't show the fact you are trying to catch up on the latest military documents to command an army. a journal with a book photo -- general with a book? this was something in his .nterest he kept private his interest personally, his interest professionally. so in the end, what is the "so what" of all of this? what do i learn, and what do i hope you will learn? i think it teaches us washington was a real person. this is a humanizing book. this is a way to get into his mind in a way that other biographers who tend to rely on the kind of the image of washington, the iconic image of him on the white charger or standing up there in total command of himself, a lot of his greatness is just a suit. people never before looked at that dimension of how he made himself, how he fashioned himself and his legacy. hisle have talked about ascendancy through connections and powerful relationships, the fact he was in a lot of cases and the right place at the right time, or as benjamin frank equipped when he was being nominated as commander for the continental army, the tallest man in the room, he is bound to lead something. there is that elements. he is in the right place at the right time. he had the right qualifications. he was a native born american with military experience, check, check, check. but beyond that, he had to have done something else. and i think reading is that practical, deliberate, immediate reading helped him prepare for and deal with the responsibilities that he had in different parts of his life, whether that was here in mount vernon with the innovative library, trying to get out of the tobacco planting and diminishing returns, to being the military officer, to being the political leader. reading is how he did that. see the human watching him. we see washington with nerves. we don't think of washington being nervous about anything. right? he is there, he is in command of himself, and that is all there is to it. he is steely eyed and ready to take on whatever comes at him. but he was a real person with real anxiety, just as we all are and we take on new positions, whatever it is we choose to do in our public or private lives. he was just like us. he was real. he had flaws and vulnerabilities , but yet strengths and knew how to play to them. this reading program he had helped play to those strengths. it gave him security, the hewledge he needed to do it did, which was improbable. everything about what he accomplished in his life, nothing said father of the country. nothing. he did, and that is a we learn from it. here is a look at the real person that has been overlooked for all these years. the library that was right here under everybody's noses all this time. for that, i thank you and welcome your questions. [applause] >> ok, we are going to open it up for questions. i want everyone to wait for the microphone to calm. we are recording of course for c-span, but we have people in the overflow room, and we want people to hear the brilliant questions. i told her you are the best audience in the country. you have got to live up to it. i want to correct one thing on the record. building isf this exactly what george washington had in mind. we had a sheaf of paper, there it was. all laid out. [laughter] >> so who wants to be first up? >> do you have any clues about what first book you read as a teenager or in his teens, and secondly, if you want to learn about agriculture or [indiscernible] , how do you order books from overseas? how do you ask someone to select great books for you? adrienne harrison: great question, thank you. as far as the first book that he purchased, we all know about the rule of stability, and as he was a teenager, he committed those memories. the first lucky purchase was the late elegy to great duke of schaumburg. it was a printed eulogy of this guy, frederick duke of schaumburg who was, he was a huguenot military leader who had some acclaim over in europe. and the eulogy, washington bought it. it is interesting, because it describes the qualities that frederick had, exec lee what washington kind of forced himself into being from one who was a leader of character, illegal bravery, took duty seriously -- physical bravery, took duty seriously. it seemed like washington bought this book, we know he bought it when he was 14 years old, something he clearly took to heart. he did it, the rest of his life. as far as the second question how he went about finding certain titles, some are discerned from letters exchange with friends and neighbors about certain things like farming. one of the few examples we have of his marginal notes being in a book called animal husbandry, a book of agriculture. she did heard of this book -- washington heard of this book. he writes to his agent, robert carey in london and specifically asks for that title in a certain addition. he has heard about this from somewhere. if you are in a city like new york or boston or philadelphia, there are bookshops and lists of what is out in what you can order, but in a place like this, or you are removed all of that, it really relies on word-of-mouth or written recommendations. things like that. askingture, you find in for specific titles, because it is a big he felt cultural talking about. -- felt comfortable talking about. question, as i understand it, he did attend school until his father died when he was 11? hmm. ne harrison: hmm >> did he receive any schooling, mathematics, surveying, was that helpful? adrienne harrison: it was. we know that washington was educated up to today, an equivalent would be like late elementary school, maybe middle school level. for a time when he lived with this older half-brother lawrence, he did have a private tutor. he was instructed in the r's, sotals, the three to speak. looking at his commonplace book, he had a clear gift for mathematics. he seems to take it quite well. psalms and math problems written out that you can see him learning and applying this knowledge. but a lot of that, a lot of that knowledge with regards to math, he learned on the practical level when he decided to pursue an early career and surveying. he borrowed surveying books ms. mentor, -- from his mentor, colonel fairfax. he started surveying the form that he grew up on an practice. you see him getting better and better at it as he applied himself. it was a little bit of that formal schooling if in the fundamentals, but a lot of it was really self-taught after that. -- gave him the fundamentals, but a lot of that was really self-taught after that. in your research, was there a particular topic or topical areas that george washington seems the most focused on? adrienne harrison: i would say the agriculture is where you see him the most focused on. that is where he is the happiest, i think, as a reader to read it is where you see him applying himself as a student. i mentioned animal husbandry. he entered into in the 1780's. he enters into a correspondence with some english agricultural reformers and subscribes to their books coming out. he takes, what we have in his marginal notes is his efforts to take these books written overseas and in the conversion math to make french measurements matchvirginia's -- match virginia's. they were not metric. americans always rejected european measurements, even back then. you can match that with his journals. he key very much a farmer journal, where he does always experiments and he is always applying it. it is very neat, it is very deliberate. he does the farming, he 18 sided, build that barn. there are evidence of different agricultural books he had mercy notes.ng he makes himself field manuals. he will not take the expensive book into the field. that is crazy. but if he drops it in some maneuver? - in some manure? he is pulling ideas from these different books away students would now. if they are pursuing southward of a project, an experimental project. but as for you see this passion come through the most. >> if you are going to do the tours afterwards, you pulled is speakingrienne about, we have one on husbandry. barlow visited mt. vernon in the 1870's. a gentleman of here? >> thank you. inou go to the bookstore colonel ford's theater, you see they stack up all the books on linkedin. several floors -- books on lincoln, several floors. i want to thank you your perseverance actually. fighting to eventually come to what your thesis was about an obviously tonight, we all benefited. you mentioned the importance that washington placed on relationships. and it seems that they were important to him, and he read for military reasons, political basically to persevere. you also mentioned he never shared what he read. , close to thee vest when he read. he ever inquire -- did you ever find any evidence of him inquiring what jefferson read or what adams read or what others read? , and it influence his want to ask one last question since you mention the political election. with the presidential election. what would all the candidates need to know about washington today? [laughter] well, i thinkson: they need to know who he is, for starters. and when he did. that is a little iffy vending on which candidate we are talking about. -- depending on which candidate we are talking about. whether or not he corresponded with any of the founders about reading, you do not find that. especially guys like jefferson or adams about what they -- these guys are university trained scholars, attorneys. for them, reading is something that they were trained to do. they are classically educated. their way of going about things is different, and for different purposes and some extent. for that, you don't find washington soliciting advice from them. where you do see him asking for advice is as a younger man, certainly about military science. he's asking his mentor, colonel fairfax. he talked to general braddock o'mahony served after -- under as a -- who he served under as a staff officer. otherwise, he really does not. he tended just steer clear of the more philosophical conversations and stayed with those he felt with very comfortable weighing in on. if he said, hey, what do you think about, and you recommend a book about, you know, political philosophy of full tear, because re's works in his library, that would be a rabbit hole he could not get out of. read thomas hobbes instead, what does you think about it? that is not something washington felt comfortable doing. so you don't see that the same way. it is the practical things he would ask about. about his political books he was looking for. is there a track of those books that led to the ability that he gained to find the right people in the right organization to run the government? adrienne harrison: you mean in terms of setting up a presidential candidate -- cabinet and the kind of thing? no, the really isn't. setting up, finding a good team of advisers was something that washington learned how to do kind of through experience. he does this during the revolution. he calls the the military family . his agents and top commanders. through his experiences in the previous war, and his inexperience and this one, he was not good at personal command at the outset. 1776 is the lowest moment in his command. he takes over the defense of new york, and is a disaster. they almost lost the war. he learned value, something he applied from, but he returns to a second opinion. he was throughout an idea and get opinions of those around him, whether they were his subordinate commanders or cabinet officers during his presidency. he would throw out an idea, listen to what they have to say, reciting the fact they were often more qualified for his position that he was. he would listen to their opinions, but he knew it was his job to weigh in with the decision. he took his time. he may deliver it decisions. that is something jefferson would deride washington, saying he had a powerful mind come about not first order. he was slow in making decisions, and this is why. it is a play on words i put in the title. really comingt from examples. that is our reading example. it is coming from experience. english history would show him that kings always had councils. there was the privy council, the parliamentary structure. washington, as well as nearly was aother american, who colonial, was well-versed in english history, was proud of it, proud of the english constitution. you had a head of state, but the state had advisers. so he is tapping into the british example. >> in your research, did you find that he had a lot of books on british military tactics, or did he learn enough in the virginia commission under braddock? where did you get the idea that strategy, he did not have to win the revolution, just outlast the british and make them spend a lot of money and men, and that he could win it that way? which seems kind of unusual for the times. adrienne harrison: it is unusual, you are right. you have the intersection of experience with his reading. most of his military reading was british or were english translations of some french texts. the english and french armies were the most powerful, so look no further. he also had books of alexander the great, a staff organizer of the day. so what he learns immediately for military reading is how unprepared he is for this, and not just him, but the organization that he led. he had two officers with experience, charles and her ratio. were like athem bookseller who liked artillery. he read books, sounds good. he can do it. he is good at plucking out people with potential, that he does not have a lot of experience. he read these british manuals. he knows from the practical and very is with the british army, listening to those officers talk about their reading about d how you go about winning wars, what is distinctive of him is a decisive win. you don't want a long war. that is not glorious. you want one big battle the decides everything, and that user vendor or women's honor. everyone goes home. surrender with honor. everything goes home. so he tries the big battle in new york, and he fails miserably. not only was he not really prepared for that task, he had nothing to work with. manhattan, glenn heights, long island. you have staten island that is kind of out there that does not need to be defended, but it is there to consider it. you have huge rooms -- rivers and a big navigable harbor that can hold the whole royal navy. so he has guys for massachusetts and new england, and he has no navy to speak of. so he is not dealt a good deck to play with. andhe tries the big battle he and his army failed. and he learns that he is not in a politically to know that the british don't want this to go on forever. he does not want to to go on forever either, but the british are going to have more stomach for it. havehave requested -- they a massive war debt from the seven years war. they don't want this to go on. the british people are largely, they are not in favor of waging an expensive war against people that are largely related to them. so it is not in their british interest to keep it going. he think that we have to do is survive, so he goes against the grain of what is expected of an 18th-century commander in order to do this. so i think what the reading does is it shows him or his shortfalls are, and his own lack of an education keeps him time -- humble enough, although he was to be seen, needs to be seen as that big general, worthy of the title, worthy of the ring, he cannot do it. he has to do it is necessary, has no other choice. he had the big military education his british counterparts had, it would have been harder for him. he was directed by nature. he wants that big battle. he wants to do it so badly. it would have been harder if he had that education behind him, because i think it would have potentially blinded him as to what his army's weaknesses work. he thinks the knowledge will take it all the way. so it was a weakness and a strength in the end. it worked out. >> as a military field commander yourself, i wonder if you could say more about the technical literature that he read -- tactical literature that he read, and how well he was able the richerfrom matched any of his battle plans are thinking. adrienne harrison: i will give you a quick example. when washington took over the army and cambridge after being appointed commander in chief, he is a virginian that is going up north. he has been to boston before, but this was the first time encountering these troops. called newrified, he englanders dirty and nasty people. he was horrified by the fact they elected their own officers. that is completely different from the world that he came from where your connections, your birth got you to your position. he has to restructure this. so you see him reading field manuals, things that are directed at the tenets and sergeants to read. he starts to -- at lieutenants and sergeants to read. he starts to do in the mental things about keeping , keeping the camp clean and sterile so you don't want to have open latrines near sources of water. things like that are the first immediate applications of that knowledge. ,nd the terms of his strategy he is really relying, the grand strategy he has got big ideas that he would have gotten of his knowledge of british military history and those exploits that he got from reading things like commentaries and humphrey bland's treatise on military. a blend of his reading and his goals and knowing what the expectations were on the goals side. he is always aware of the fact that he needs to put this revolution -- for this revolution to work, it is a revolution for him, not a rebellion. he has to be seen as leading a legitimate fighting force, not a band of rebels. until 1776 when independence is declared, that is when it was to americans and british. doing english liberties back. for washington, it is about something different. so this is a part of his grander strategy, making a professional force. you see him advocating for a regular pay, uniforms, things that are not really a commanding generals problem easily. -- usually. he is making a big deal because it is about legitimacy. as much as he needs to win for the sake of america, the british need to recognize they are fighting a real armed force. it is not just a band of criminals that should be crashed -- crushed as in previous history. so we think strategy is big campaigning. a key component for washington, political is a was merged with military. that is the root direct application of that reading. first, i would like to thank you for your service, and second, a psychological question. in your research, did washington ever strike you as more of a visual, audio, or technical learner? i think herrison: was, i will return to the agriculture. that is what you see him kind of actively putting multiple things together. he is reading different sources, has his own creative ideas. he is putting them into action. he is certainly a technical learner when you see him going out there. he is experimenting with crops, or even as a teenager, he is learning surveying by doing it. he has the book in one hand and the stakes in the other. you can think his skills to better over time, his agricultural skills and the extent of the operations here at mount vernon get so diverse. it is so complicated. he is really trying to innovate ahead of what his peers are doing. so i think he is very much a tactile, he is happiest that way as a tactile learner. >> one more question. take somebody on the other side. hands up. i believe it has been said of the 19th century literary household that on the book side were two great works, the bible and plutarch. you talk about washington reading either one, and how that informed the periods that you talk about? adrienne harrison: i will talk about washington and the bible, because that is a hot topic, washington and religion. it is a debate that continues to go on about what he actually believes. washington's relationship with the bible goes all the way back to his childhood. mary washington, his mother, read to her children on the bible and from the english religious book, the book of prayers, sermon books every day. there was a part of his earliest education, growing up with that. it was very important for him, not just -- we will leave aside the moment of faith itself. for someone like him, and aspirational young man that was to make it in virginia in society, he needs to grow up a good anglican. going to church, specially the church of england, the established church in virginia is something that your place in society dictates when you enter the church, where you sit in the church, and when you leave it. how you perform throughout the service, and for those people who are not, were not at the skip aliens, it is up -- episcopalians, there is active worship that goes on. there is following along in the prayer service, the common prayer book. there is ritual that goes along that requires members of the congregation to participate. it is something that washington really, once the ambition really got going in him, which was from adolescence onward, it was important for him to learn how to behave the right way. ,ou were on stage, everybody the lowest socially ranking person in the congregation to the leader of the pack, society wise, was on display. you did not want to make a misstep that would be noticed. so i think that was something very practical for him as a ,oung man, certainly politically, church and state are tied, so we have to understand that. so with regard to the bible itself, he makes the call residences -- google references throughout his life. there are some prayers that are richard b did to washington. he made mention of divine providence and means meaning god. he is familiar with it, even when he told off by yet to retire under the the state of his own vine and victory, that is a biblical original -- illusion. it is important throughout his life here it mount vernon, something taken seriously. martha washington was very devout, something he were dissipated in as well and the rest of the family. that he participated in as well as the rest of the family. adrienne a big round of applause. [applause] >> that was wonderful. we really loved what you are doing. the great work you are doing, and particularly here in washington library. the logistical concerns, we have books for sale. what better place to buy a book then after a talk about reading, .or goodness sake we should inspire you all to give books to people whether they read them or not. just purchased. we seldom right through the doors, and they -- we sell them right through the doors, and dr. harrison will find them. because we are going to offer tours of his bold, and we have 102 of his original volumes, versus duplicate additions that we know were in the inventory at his death in addition to our own peopleh, and so i guess in the book, mark, wave your hand -- the special collectors librarian right there, you will want to meet in the book out, and then you can tell them what to do. the book out perception is right at the end of the hallway. with that, let's give another big round of applause to dr. harrison. thank you for going out. 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