Dr. Jacqueline Beatty joins host Kathryn Gehred to discuss The Petition of Belinda from 1783 in which Belinda Sutton petitions The Massachusetts General Court for the funds left to her by her enslaver Isaac Royall after he fled the colonies during the Revolutionary War. Beatty and Gehred discuss Sutton’s use of poetic language to describe her kidnapping and enslavement.

Dr. Jacqueline Beatty is an Associate Professor of History at York College of Pennsylvania, where she teaches courses in Early American, Women’s and Gender, and Public History. Her book, In Dependence: Women and the Patriarchal State in Revolutionary America explores the ways in which women in Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston manipulated their legal, social, and economic positions of dependence and turned these constraints into vehicles of female empowerment.

Find the official transcript here. 

 Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a production of R2 Studios part of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. 

 Digital Archive of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions, Massachusetts Archives, Boston MA, 2015, "Massachusetts Archives Collection. v.239-Revolution Resolves, 1783. SC1/series 45X, Petition of Belinda", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/0GMCO, Harvard Dataverse, V4.

 The Royall House and Slave Quarters - https://royallhouse.org/ 

Ramin Ganeshram joins Kathryn Gehred to discuss excerpts from Janet Shaw’s Journal of a lady of quality; being the narrative of a journey from Scotland to the West Indies, North Carolina, and Portugal, in the years 1774 to 1776. Ganeshram and Gehred explore life under martial law in North Carolina and the fear and paranoia among white colonists because of a supposed insurrection by enslaved people.

Ramin Ganeshram is the executive director of the Westport Museum for History and Culture in Westport, Connecticut. She is an award winning journalist and historian, and she specializes in addressing how public history can truthfully and faithfully address American history around race and identity. She also has a background in writing about food history and foodways.

Find the official transcript here. 

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a production of R2 Studios part of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. 

Journal of a lady of quality; being the narrative of a journey from Scotland to the West Indies, North Carolina, and Portugal, in the years 1774 to 1776, Janet Shaw, Edited by Evangeline Walker Andrews, in collaboration with Charles McLean Andrews, Yale Universtiy Press, 1921, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t02z15h83?urlappend=%3Bseq=222. 

Mary Wigge joins Kathryn Gehred to discuss a letter from Lucy Flucker Knox to her husband General Henry Knox in which she describes how she spends her days during the Revolutionary War. Lucy, a wealthy Tory's daughter whose parents and siblings fled to England, expresses her loneliness and longing for Henry, who is with the army in Philadelphia. 

Wigge is a Research Editor at the Papers of James Madison and was previously an editor with The Papers of Martha Washington and The Papers of George Washington. 

Lucy Knox to Henry Knox, Boston, Massachusetts, 23 August 1777. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC02437.00638 https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/02437.00638_OS.docx_.pdf. 

“Abigail Adams Smith to Abigail Adams, 15 and 22 June 1788,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-08-02-0132.  

Lucy Flucker Knox, Silhouette, circa 1790, Silhouette Collection, 1.51, Massachusetts Historical Society, https://www.masshist.org/database/764.  

The Pioneer Mothers of America; a record of the more notable women of the early days of the country, and particularly of the colonial and revolutionary periods / by Harry Clinton Green and Mary Wolcott Green v. 2, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uga1.32108001197717. 

Philip Hamilton, The Revolutionary War Lives and Letters of Lucy and Henry Knox (Baltimore, 2017).

Find the official transcript here. 

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a production of R2 Studios part of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. 

In this bonus episode of Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant, Kathryn Gehred dives into the podcast's origin story. While working as an editor of the Papers of Martha Washington, Gehred became very familiar with how people wrote letters in the 18th and early 19th centuries. She noticed that people often abbreviated the closing of their letters which she found very relatable. This inspired the podcast and why Gehred presents women through an entire letter or another document, offering a deeper understanding of their personalities. 

Find the official transcript here. 

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a production of R2 Studios part of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. 

Dr. Maeve Kane joins Kathryn Gerhred to explore Konwatsi'tsiaienni Molly Brant’s life during the American Revolution. Brant was a member of the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation, one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Kane and Gerhred discuss Brant’s pivotal diplomatic efforts to maintain the Mohawk’s alliance with the British during the American War for Independence, and the turmoil Indigenous women like her faced during Sullivan’s Campaign in the late 1770s, as they read two letters from Brant to her step-son-in-law, Daniel Claus. 

Kane is an Associate Professor of History and the Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Albany. She is the author of Shirts, Powdered Red: Haudenosaunee Gender, Trade, and Exchange (Cornell University Press, 2023).  

Molly Brant to Daniel Claus, Carleton Island, 5 October 1779. Daniel Claus Papers, Library and  Archives Canada. MG19 F1 vol2:135-136 https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c1478 

Sir Frederick Haldimand: Unpublished Papers and Correspondence. London: Microfilm Publications. 1977.  Reel H-1450, Series B-114. MS 21774:180-181. Original at the British Library https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_h1450 

Find the official transcript here. 

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a production of R2 Studios part of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. 

We are excited to announce that on October 29 Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant will be back with Season Four. This season, we're exploring revolutionary America through the words written by women. We'll follow along in letters as women questioned their loyalties, challenged authority, sought freedom, and aided and resisted revolutionary change. We're going to dive into the lives of Indigenous women, Scottish women, plantation owners, milliners, women who were enslaved, loyalists, patriots and so much more. We've interviewed leading scholars and have great stories to share with you. Join us on this Season of Revolution wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a production of R2 Studios at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant has been nominated for the Women in Podcasting Awards! We would really appreciate it if you would vote for the podcast in the history category. Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is up against some GREAT podcasts, so your support would be really meaningful! Your vote would go a long way in helping the podcast gain visibility and get these letters out into the world. 

Here's how to vote: Step 1: Click on the link to vote by October 1, 2024 www.womenpodcasters.com/vote Step 2: Find the History category drop-down menu and select our show from the options. Note: There is no fee for voting, but there is a double opt-in to prevent fake traffic or votes. The person with the most votes will win the category. There is one vote per person per category.

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a production of R2 Studios, part of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. 

Catharine Maria Sedgwick to Eliza Cabot Follen, February 18, 1828. In which Sedgwick writes to her dear friend Cabot Follen about the need for a new minister, pieces she has recently read and written, and an exquisite Valentine. 

 Featuring Dr. Patricia Kalayjian and Dr. Lucinda Damon-Bach of The Catharine Maria Sedgwick Online Letters project. Dr. Kalayjian is a Professor Emerita of Interdisciplinary Studies at California State University and the editor and project director of the Sedgwick Online Letters project. Dr. Damon-Bach is an editor of the project and a professor of English at Salem State University.

Find the official transcript here.

Woman's Political Future - An Address by Frances E. W. Harper to the Chicago World's Fair, 20 May 1893. In which Harper champions morality, civil rights, and civic duty in Jim Crow America. 

Featuring Chole Porche, Ph.D. candidate in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia.

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a production of R2 Studios, part of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. 

Find the official transcript here. 

Martha Washington to Eleanor Parke Custis, c. February 1797. In which Washington warns her granddaughter that her dress may not arrive from Philadelphia in time for a Virginia ball. 

Featuring Dr. Alexandra Garrett, Assistant Professor of History, St. Michael's College.

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a production of R2 Studios, part of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. 

Find the official transcript here.