Lindsay Chervinsky is a presidential historian who has written what she says is the first book on the presidential cabinet. It's called "The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution." It was on November 26, 1791, that President George Washington convened his cabinet department secretaries: Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph. It was the first cabinet meeting ever held. Among other things, we asked Lindsay Chervinsky why Washington waited a full two and a half years into his presidency to call everyone together.

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