Alexis and Elliott explore the life of our oft-forgotten 21st president, Chester Alan Arthur. Author Esther Crain explains why Arthur was the quintessential Gilded Age New Yorker, Elliott digs into a complicated relationship with NY senator Roscoe Conkling, and Alexis investigates his involvement in a significant civil rights case. Playwright Sean David DeMers meets our hosts at a Brooklyn cemetery, to discuss Arthur’s mysterious correspondence with a New York woman who encouraged him to rise to the challenges of the presidency.

Alexis and Elliott attempt to get closer to the man behind the marble facade: our first president, George Washington. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis explains what made Washington a myth, even in his own time. Reid Mitenbuler, author of Bourbon Empire, sheds light on Washington’s surprising role as a major American whiskey distiller. Rohulamin Quander reflects on his ancestors enslaved at Mount Vernon, and Alexis and Elliott visit the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to see the site of Benedict Arnold’s infamous betrayal.