Mary V. Thompson

Mary V. Thompson began life as an "army brat" and, as a result of her father's work as an army chaplain, was raised in a number of locations in the United States, as well as West Germany and the occupied city of West Berlin. She is a graduate of: New Dorp High School in Staten Island, New York (1973); Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama (B.A. 1977; History Major; Folklore Minor); and the University of Virginia (M.A. 1980; History).

Mary has been on the staff at George Washington's home, Mount Vernon, since 1980, where she has gone from giving tours to 8,000 people per day, to managing the curatorial collection, to serving as the staff historian. Among her proudest accomplishments were curating the travelling exhibition "Treasures from Mount Vernon: George Washington Revealed" (1998-2000); doing background research for the 1999 re-enactment of George Washington's funeral; and ensuring that the enslaved community at Mount Vernon is remembered. She received the 2009 Alexandria History Award from the Alexandria Historical Society and the 2013 award from the George Washington Memorial Association Award for her first book, "In the Hands of a Good Providence: Religion in the Life of George Washington" (University Press of Virginia, 2008).

Mary has written chapters for books edited by other historians, as well as articles for several encyclopedias and periodicals. Among those other books are: "Dining with the Washingtons: Dining, Entertaining and Hospitality at Mount Vernon," for which she wrote two chapters and twenty sidebars (2011), and "A Companion to George Washington," edited by Edward G. Lengel (2012). She has also given talks on a number of topics relating to the Washingtons and Mount Vernon over the years. For examples of some of those, see http://www.mountvernon.org/learn/collections/index.cfm/ss/36/, where you will also find additional information on the subject of George Washington and religion, originally planned as possible appendices for the book, which the publisher felt would be better on the web.

Mary was approached several years ago to write a new short biography of Martha Washington for a Young Adult series on American Presidents and First Ladies; that book was published in 2017. Her third book, "The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret": George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2019 and was awarded the 2019 James Bradford Biography Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR). She is now working on a book about the animals (pets, livestock, and exotic) at Mount Vernon in the eighteenth century.

She lives in the Tauxemont Historic District in Alexandria, Virginia, with her husband, Tony Bates, an artist and poet. They currently live with an orange-eyed, dilute calico Persian cat named Shalimar. They are also contemplating getting a puppy--probably a West Highland White Terrier.