On March 28, 2025, after nearly a decade of planning, a new exhibition, “The Two Georges: Parallel Lives in an Age of Revolution,” opened at the Library of Congress. The exhibit features the papers of George Washington held by the Library of Congress Manuscript Division and the papers of Britain’s King George III from the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. The Georges’ letters, ledgers, diaries, drawings, reading notes, and more are accompanied by prints, books, newspapers, maps, and published music from nearly every division of the Library of Congress. Britain’s Royal Collection is a major lender to the exhibition, as is London’s Science Museum, which contributed scientific instruments from its George III Collection. A companion exhibit at the Science Museum opens in 2026.
The exhibition explores the Georges’ common origins in the British Empire, their collision during the Revolutionary War, their roles as national leaders, and the distinctive way that each understood the wielding of power. It also includes sections that focus on narrower themes. A section on family shows how each managed family life during an era when not only colonies, but also children rebelled. Another section focuses on Thayendanegea, a Mohawk leader also known as Joseph Brant, who met both Georges.
The Georges shared a passion for science and were both fascinated by Enlightenment-inflected methods of agriculture. The “Science and Agriculture” section includes British books on agriculture that both Georges read, as well as an “armillary sphere,” or model of the universe, owned by George III and lent by London’s Science Museum.
The institution of slavery was integral to the world that both Georges inhabited, but their relation to it was very different. George III profited from the labor of enslaved workers on his kingdom’s Caribbean possessions, but he had little contact with enslaved people himself. Washington’s Virginia, in contrast, was penetrated by the institution, and Washington was a lifelong owner of enslaved labor. A section called “Reading the Sources” uses two newspaper advertisements for enslaved escapees to show how the meaning of primary sources can change over time. Washington placed the first of these ads in 1761, before the Revolutionary War, and the other in 1796, while he was president. His goal was to recapture his human property, but the exhibit encourages visitors to read these ads in a different way – as sources of detailed information about the enslaved people themselves that make it possible to reconstruct aspects of their lives well beyond their condition as slaves.
“Myth and Memory,” a video at the entrance to the exhibition, presents visitors with examples of the images, both serious and silly, by which most people know the two Georges. These include young Washington and the cherry tree, Washington crossing the Delaware with the ice floes represented as slices of cherry pie, representations of “the Mad King” in a straitjacket (or a “strait waistcoat”), and more. The video invites visitors into the exhibition and challenges them to learn about the two Georges from the objects and letters and other primary sources on display, in which they and their contemporaries reveal their worlds.
The exhibition is in the Southwest Gallery of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building. It will run for a year, closing on March 21, 2026. An exhibit website provides exhibit images, a reading list, and links to additional resources. A companion book from the Library’s Publishing Office and distributed by the University of North Carolina Press is available in the gift shop.
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