Things to Do DC

What's on George Washington's Bookshelf? Visit His Library on Presidents Day to Find Out

The George Washington Presidential Library will be open on Monday, Feb. 20 from 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

NBC Universal, Inc.

In honor of George Washington's 291st birthday, the former president's library is hosting a rare open house.

The George Washington Presidential Library, located at Washington's Mount Vernon estate in Virginia, will be open on Presidents Day, Feb. 20 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

It was last open to the public a decade ago and is typically only open to researchers and other academics. 

This Monday the library will be open for tours, lectures and a peek inside his famous vault, which contains the rare collections housed at the library.

The library contains hundreds of books that George Washington owned and likely read, according to the Director of George Washington's Mount Vernon Doug Bradburn. 

โ€œWell, we have some of his earliest books, some of his textbooks, really. I mean, we have his textbook that taught him how to be a surveyor. And that's really pretty cool because it's a book he would have used in the field,โ€ Bradburn said. โ€œWe have, you know, his early book on how to learn how to navigate the principles of navigation in which he actually fixes one of the formulas that's incorrect in his own hand in there. So you can kind of see his little mind at work as he's learning.โ€

The Mount Vernon estate will also be free and open to the public on Monday.

Contact Us