Authors and Topics
-2.jpg)
George Washington and His Legacies
Moderator: Patricia (Patti) Miller, Managing Editor, Encyclopedia Virginia
Patricia Miller is the Managing Editor of Encyclopedia Virginia, the digital encyclopedia of Virginia history and culture, at Virginia Humanities, where she works to bring cutting-edge historical scholarship to public audiences. She has a passion for uncovering untold stories and lives. She is the author of Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age and the “Powerless” Woman Who Took on Washington (FSG, 2018) and Good Catholics: The Battle Over Abortion in the Catholic Church (UC Press, 2014). Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, and
Lapham’s Quarterly. She holds a dual B.A in Political Science and Communications from LaSalle University and an M.A. in Journalism from New York University.
Tim Rose — George Washington and Alexandria: A Founding Friendship
No other city in America had the impact that Alexandria had on George Washington’s life. From his first job as surveyor until the last day of his life, Washington was supported by his neighbors, friends, and family from Alexandria. Alexandrians helped make him the father of our nation. In return, Washington helped shape the city and, by extension, the new American nation. While Washington’s home was Mount Vernon, his hometown was Alexandria. It was fittng that the city would celebrate his return from the Revolutionary War, see him off as President, and build enduring memorials to his legacy.
Tim is a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, a loving husband, and a proud Marine Corps veteran. He grew up in Richmond, Virginia; graduated from Amherst College In Massachusetts; and earned an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. In 2023, he started Alexandria History Tours, which provides professionally guided walking tours of historic Old Town Alexandria.
Ricardo A. Herrera — Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778
This major new history of the Continental Army’s Grand Forage of 1778 uncovers what daily life was like during the Valley Forge winter. Here, the Army launched its largest and riskiest operation — not a battle against British forces but an operation to feed itself and prevent starvation or disintegration. Feeding Washington’s Army brings to life the army’s Herculean efforts to feed itself, support local and Continental governments, and challenge the British Army.
Ricardo A. Herrera is Professor of Military History (retired), U.S. Army War College, and is now Senior Historian, George Washington Leadership Institute, at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. An Award-winning historian, Rick Herrera is the author of Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2022), For Liberty and the Republic: The American Citizen as Soldier, 1775-1861 (New York: New York University Press, 2015), and numerous articles and essays. He is now completing the tentatively titled book, A Most Uncommon Soldier: The Life, Letters and Journal of Edward Ashley Bowen Phelps, 1814-1895, an edited collection, to be published by the University Press of Kansas.
Cassandra A. Good — First Family: George Washington’s Heirs and the Making of America
First Family tells the story of George Washington’s step-grandchildren, the Custises, who achieved fame as the nation’s first “first family.” The Custis family story parallels America’s story in its first century: military triumph and tragedy; democracy and old aristocratic ties; visions of liberty alongside the horrors of slavery. The book was named a finalist for the 2024 George Washington Prize and a finalist for the Library of Virginia’s Reader’s Choice Award.
Cassandra Good is a historian and writer focusing on early American politics, gender, and culture. She serves as Associate Professor of History at Marymount University. Her work has been supported by grants from institutions including the National Endowment for the Humanities, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Smithsonian Institution, and the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. She also has experience in and consults for museums, and historic sites.
Views of the Period
Moderator: Hugh De Santis, Author and former U.S. Diplomat
Hugh De Santis was a career officer in the Department of State. He also served on the Policy Planning Staff of Secretary of State George Schulz. He later chaired the Department of National Security Strategy at the National War College and served as senior advisor for Asian regional integration at the CIA. De Santis holds an M.A. in international relations and a PhD in diplomatic history from the University of Chicago. His most recent book is The Right to Rule: American Exceptionalism and the Coming Multipolar World Order.
J. Dean Norton — The General in the Garden: George Washington’s Landscape at Mount Vernon
The General in the Garden is a book not about Washington as the Founding Father but as one of our Founding Gardeners. Most do not realize that Washington considered himself foremost a farmer and gardener, not a politician or general. The General in the Garden brings together a wonderful range of material related to Mount Vernon’s landscape and gardens. It reveals Washington’s ideas and inspirations from his books, letters, diaries, friends and other 18th century gardens. Most of all, it shows Washington’s spirit lives on in the gardens and groves of Mount Vernon Estate.
Dining with the Washingtons is a wonderfully illustrated and well-researched compendium of historical essays and recipes. It touches on the hospitality at Mount Vernon, everyday dining, special occasions, and the liquor and wine offered to guests. Dining at Mount Vernon was a culinary experience that many 18th century founders enjoyed. The book is also a special historical account of the lives and activities of the enslaved chefs and servants who worked there.
J. Dean Norton retired from George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate after 55 years of service to Washington and The Mount Vernon Ladies Association. Dean has extensively researched 18th century gardening and landscape practices and has received awards for conservation and preservation from Colonial Dames, Garden Clubs of Virginia and America. Under the Biden Administration, he was asked to serve on the Commission for the Preservation of the White House.
Bryan J. Zygmont — Portraiture and Politics in New York City, 1790-1825: Gilbert Stuart, John Vanderlyn, John Trumbull and John Wesley Jarvis
Portraiture and Politics in New York City, 1790-1825, examines the many intersections of politics and art, especially in portraits produced in a young nation seeking its footing. Perhaps there is no better example of this than the planned Gilbert Stuart portrait of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the U.S., a commissioned portrait that was never painted. The major characters in this drama include Gilbert Stuart — famous for his portraits of George Washington — and John Trumbull, now known for his large-scale history paintings that visually chronicle the American Revolution.
The story also involves Jay’s close political ally Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton’s political nemesis Aaron Burr and Burr’s artistic protégé John Vanderlyn. An exploration of this commission — and the reasons for its ultimate failure — speak eloquently to the relationship between friendship and political allegiances during the early nineteenth century.
Bryan Zygmont is Professor of Art History and Dean of Liberal Arts at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. A scholar of 18th and 19th century art and visual culture, he is the author of Portraiture and Politics in New York City, 1790-1825. He is the Contributing Editor for American Art at Smarthistory, a peer-reviewed online art history textbook.
Larrie D. Ferreiro — Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It.
The American Revolution’s success depended on the substantial military assistance provided by France and Spain who shared global strategic interests in their fight against Britain. At the time the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, the colonists had no chance of militarily defeating the British. The nascent
American nation had no navy, little in the way of artillery and a militia bereft even of gunpowder. Without the extensive military and financial support of the French and Spanish, the American cause would never have succeeded. Ultimately, France and
Spain brought the fight to the British around the globe, threatening their empire and bringing them to the peace table.
Larrie Ferreiro is a naval architect and historian. He is the 2017 Pulitzer finalist for History, for his book, Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It. His latest work, Churchill’s American Arsenal: The Partnership Behind the Innovations That Won World War II, was published under Oxford University Press in 2022. Dr. Ferreiro teaches history and engineering at George Mason University in Virginia and the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. He and his family live in Virginia.
America’s Gilded Age
Moderator: Matthew Gibson, Executive Director, Virginia Humanities
Matthew Gibson is the Executive Director of Virginia Humanities, the state’s humanities council. Under his leadership, Virginia Humanities has continued to broaden its support and programming to every corner of the state, deepen its commitment to storytelling, and foster a more expansive understanding of Virginia’s past and present.
Matthew first joined Virginia Humanities in 2005 to create and
build Encyclopedia Virginia, a pioneering educational resource that provides open access to Virginia’s rich history and culture. Since becoming executive director in 2017, he has championed innovative programming, community engagement and partnerships to reach all Virginians and provide access to and information about the Commonwealth’s history, cultural traditions, and heritage. Before his tenure at Virginia Humanities, Matthew worked in higher education with a focus on digital scholarship, bringing a unique blend of historical expertise and technological innovation to his work. He holds an MA and PhD in English from the University of Virginia. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Donna Lucey — Sargent’s Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas
Sargent’s Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas tells the backstories of four American women painted by John Singer Sargent, the iconic society portraitist of the Gilded Age. Based on original letters and diaries, the book sheds light on the expatriate American artist and his personal relationship to his subjects — a teenage heiress born in the Rocky Mountains; an orphan from the fabled Astor family in New York; a maverick inspired by Sargent to lead the Bohemian life of an artist; and the headstrong Isabella Stewart Gardner who defied prim Boston society and triumphed by creating her own magnificent art museum.
Donna M. Lucey is the award-winning biographer whose books include Sargent’s Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas, the New York Times bestselling Archie and Amelie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age, Photographing Montana 1894-1928: The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron, and the forthcoming Victoria’s Island: The Isle of Wight—Poets, Artists, Prison Boys, and a Queen. Lucey has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities as an independent scholar and served as a writer-in-residence at Edith Wharton’s The Mount. She and her husband, historian Henry Wiencek, have collaborated on a book about architecture and on a screenplay based on Photographing Montana.
Jill Meriwether Photography
Henry Wiencek — Stan and Gus: Art, Ardor and the Friendship That Built the Gilded Age
Stan and Gus tells one of the defining stories of the Gilded Age. Stanford White was a louche man-about-town and a canny cultural entrepreneur―the creator of landmark buildings that elevated American architecture to new heights. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the son of an immigrant shoemaker, a moody introvert, and a committed procrastinator whose painstaking work brought emotional depth to American sculpture. Stan and Gus sets the two men’s relationship within the larger story of the American Renaissance, where millionaires’ commissions and delusions of grandeur collided with secret upper-class clubs, new
aesthetic ideas, and two ambitious young men to yield work of lasting beauty.
A nationally prominent historian and biographer, Henry Wiencek was nominated for the 2026 PEN America Literary Award for his latest book, Stan and Gus: Art, Ardor, and the Friendship That Built the Gilded Age. He previously won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Best Book award from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. His books include The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White; An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America; and Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves.
America’s Jazz Age and Beyond
Moderator: Phoebe Stein, President, Federation of State Humanities Councils
Phoebe Stein has been an advocate for the humanities at the local, state and federal levels for more than 25 years. In 2020, she joined the Federation of State Humanities Councils as President after serving as Executive Director of Maryland Humanities and Director of Public Affairs at Illinois Humanities. She holds a PhD and M.A. in English from Loyola University of Chicago and a B.A. from the University of Michigan.
Her literary criticism has appeared in Modernist Studies, PMLA, Biography, Twentieth Century Literature and in a chapter on
Gertrude Stein in Primary Stein: Returning to the Writing of Gertrude Stein. She serves on the Board of the National Humanities Alliance and on the advisory councils of Humanities Indicators (a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences) and National History Day.
Kirk Curnutt — F. Scott Fitzgerald: Gatsby at 100
F. Scott Fitzgerald: Gatsby at 100 looks at the enduring popularity and relevance of The Great Gatsby which was published 101 years ago. Often considered “the great American novel”, Gatsby has not only influenced popular culture, particularly movies and fashion, but also left an indelible mark on civic discourse. In particular, the novel provides cultural commentators a tool for measuring the integrity, charm and even venality of American politicians.
Kirk Curnutt is professor and chair of English at Troy University’s Montgomery campus in Montgomery, Alabama, where he also
serves as director of the Alabama Book Festival and an advisor to the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum. He is the author of 13 books — two novels as well as studies of Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson. He is Executive Director of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society. He holds a PhD from Louisiana State University.
Deborah W. Parker — Becoming Belle da Costa Greene
In Becoming Belle da Costa Greene: A Visionary Librarian through her Letters, Deborah Parker chronicles the making and empowerment of a female connoisseur, curator and library director in a world where such positions were held by men. Belle da Costa Greene (1879-1950) was Pierpont Morgan’s personal librarian (1908-1913) and the first director of the Morgan Library
(1924-1948). She was also the daughter of two mixed race parents and passed for white. In the nearly 600 letters that Greene sent to art historian Bernard Berenson over some 40 years, Parker identified Greene’s energetic pursuit of exceptional opportunities,
illuminating the artistry and imaginative features of Greene’s writing, her self invention, her vibrant responses to books and art, and her path-breaking work as a librarian.
Deborah Parker’s research and teaching focus on the Italian medieval and early modern eras. Her books include Commentary and Ideology: Dante in the Renaissance (1992), Bronzino: the Renaissance Painter as Poet (2000) and Michelangelo and the Art of Letter Writing (2011). Her most recent book, Becoming Belle da Costa Greene was awarded the 2025 Mary Lynn Katz Art in Literature Award by the Library of Virginia and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Parker coauthored “Belle Greene and Literature” for the exhibition catalogue for the Morgan Library exhibition, “Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian’s Legacy”.
WYLER
Catherine Wyler (by Zoom) — film producer: Memphis Belle, Directing William Wyler and The Dalai Lama’s Gift to the World.
William Wyler was a renowned and versatile director, the winner of three Oscars, whose films were both widely popular with American audiences and attuned to a multitude of themes embedded in American life over decades. His films include Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben Hur, Roman Holiday, Funny Girl and an early Wuthering Heights (1939). He was part of Hollywood’s Golden era and worked with almost every film star of his era. Why were his films so well received and what impact did they have on U.S. life and politics?
Catherine Wyler, a filmmaker, actress and owner of a production company, grew up in Hollywood, residing between two icons: Fred Astaire and Charlie Chaplin. She received a B.A. from Stanford in Modern European Literature and briefly pursued a career in publishing before returning to the film industry. She served as Assistant Director for the Media Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts and as Director of Cultural and Children’s Programming at PBS. She collaborated on a fictionalized version of her father’s documentary on Memphis Belle, a documentary on her father and, most recently, a documentary on the Dalai Lama and his bringing of Tibetian Buddhism to America in a ceremony in Wisconsin.