Read the Revolution

Read the Revolution with Lindsay M. Chervinsky

October 2024

Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky, Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, joined the Museum on Oct. 16 to kickoff the Museum’s 2024-2025 Read the Revolution Speaker Series with a lecture and discussion on presidential history inspired by her latest book, Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic.

In Making the Presidency, Chervinsky recounts the historical circumstances surrounding the 1796 presidential election, when Americans elected George Washington’s two-term vice president, John Adams, but were unsure if the presidency could even succeed without Washington’s leadership. In March 1797, Adams took up residence at the presidential mansion in Philadelphia amidst unprecedented challenges. He would need to manage the growing potential for foreign conflict with France and Britain while addressing intense partisan divides, debates over citizenship, fears of political violence and in-fighting within his own presidential cabinet. Supported by his diplomatic connections to Europe, experiences during the Revolutionary War, and political advice from his own family, Adams was persistent to forge trust in elections and to protect the new republic. Chervinsky revisited Adams’s life and legacy as the president who established the democratic value of the peaceful transfer of power and ensured the survival of the American republic.

About Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky

This image shows historian Lindsay Chervinsky to the right with a purple jacket and shoulder length brown hair with the cover of her book Making the Presidency featuring a portrait of John Adams to the left.

Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky is a historian of the presidency, political culture, and U.S. government institutions. She is the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. Previously, she was a historian at the White House Historical Association and a fellow at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. Chervinsky is the author of the award-winning The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution and the co-editor of Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture. She has been published in the Washington Post, TIME, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and many others; she is a regular resource for outlets like CBS News, CNN, The BBC, and the New York Times. For more information, visit lindsaychervinsky.com.