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Ben Franklin's World is a production of Colonia Williamsburg Innovation Studios.

Hello and welcome to Ben Franklin's World for you visit it.

A series of classic episodes

that bring fresh perspective to our latest episodes and add deeper connection to our

understandings of early American history. And I'm your host, Liz Covart. Yesterday, January 20th,

marked inauguration day in the United States. The day a new president and his administration

takes office. So it seems like a

fitting time for us to revisit a conversation that we had in 2020 about the creation of the executive

branch and more specifically the creation of the president's cabinet. Lindsay Trevinsky is an award-winning

presidential historian and the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library.

In 2020, she published her first book called The Cabinet, George Washington, and the creation

of an American institution. Now, during our conversation, we investigated what the United

States Constitution has to say about who can advise the president and the different types

of advisory bodies that George Washington

turned to before he created the cabinet. This is a really great conversation for us to revisit,

because not only has a new presidential administration taken office, but also next week,

we'll speak with Lindsay Trevinsky again about her new book, Making the Presidency,

John Adams and the Precedents that Forged

the Republic. As a preview, John Adams' cabinet played a large role in his presidency,

so it will be helpful for us to revisit this conversation now about how the cabinet was created

and how George Washington established precedents for how the cabinet secretary should work

...