Plodding Through The Presidents

We explore the incredible story of the Amistad captives and the sensation sparked by their rebellion, along with the opportunities their situation offered to the abolitionist cause and the rabble-rousing John Quincy Adams.

And we look at the impact of the Amistad rebellion on a man named Madison Washington who helped lead the most successful slave revolt in American history aboard a ship called The Creole.

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Author Dr. Cara Finnegan (Photographic Presidents: Making History From Daguerreotype to Digital) joins Howard for a conversation about the early days of photography and some of the most intriguing presidential photographs, including a photo of a painting of William Henry Harrison that looks eerily lifelike and a "spirit photograph" of Mary Lincoln and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. Before the interview, Jess and Howard tackle Jimmy Carter's brief but devastating encounter with a "killer" swamp rabbit, and the photographic proof.

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George Washington's mother Mary Ball Washington has been unfairly portrayed as a greedy shrew for decades. This week, we dig into the truth of the most popular allegations levied against her by biographers. We also trace the origins of two legends about her – the deadly lightning bolt said to have changed her and her founding fetus forever and the story of a wild horse (you thought we were done with animals?) that inspired the legend of young George and the cherry tree. Along the way we look at two recent biographies of Mary that approach their subject with very different perspectives.

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Our very first guest, Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky, joins Howard for a conversation about her book The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution and about the personalities and relationships of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton. And of course we talk a bit about our mutual love for John Quincy Adams.

Jess and Howard kick off the episode with a look at the most famous story of George Washington's profanity.

Note: Our interview with Chervinsky was recorded in June 2021 and does not take into account any events that have transpired since.

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We continue the theme of naughty animals and dive into the stories of two parrots named Polly – Dolley Madison’s violently jealous macaw and Andrew Jackson’s purportedly potty-mouthed parrot.

We dig into the plausibility of the popular story that Jackson’s parrot had to be removed from his funeral for swearing, and along the way we explore the burning of the White House and the history of profane parrots in the United States.

Show notes and sources at plodpod.com

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This episode is all about Thomas Jefferson's lust for wool and how it caused him to ignore the violence of a particular four-horned Shetland ram until it was too late. Come for the killer ram, stay for the sheep breeding and a quiz that could save you from getting rammed.

Show notes and sources at plodpod.com

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Season 3 premieres Tuesday, August 31!

Enter our book giveaway to win books by our first two guests, The Cabinet by Lindsay Chervinsky and Photographic Presidents by Cara Finnegan at https://kingsumo.com/g/aiwbpi/plodding-through-the-presidents-podcast-season-3-book-giveaway.

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In this Valentine's Day/Presidents Day bonus episode, we discuss a few sweet and weird love letters from early presidents like John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson before diving into the raunchy trove of letters borne of Warren G. Harding's semi-treasonous affair with Carrie Fulton Phillips. Listener discretion advised.

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In our Season 2 finale, we take on the single deadliest disaster to befall a presidential cabinet – the explosion aboard the USS Princeton in 1844. We look at four of the key players aboard and how they got there - President John Tyler, Secretary of State Abel Upshur, Captain Robert Stockton, and Julia Gardiner, "The Rose of Long Island" – and how this tragedy shook up Tyler's plans for love and Texas.

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We delve into the big penman energy of founding father Gouverneur Morris, the peg-legged sex-positive anti-slavery aristocrat who penned multiple constitutions and sailed through life with care-free confidence. We also explore the story of his wife, Ann Cary "Nancy" Randolph Morris and the sensational scandal at Bizarre that she struggled to overcome.

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