Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant: A Women's History

Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
  • 4.9 (90)
  • HISTORY

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a podcast that showcases 18th and early 19th-century women's letters that don't always make it into the history books. Join historian Kathryn Gehred and her guests as they explore the lives of women and the world around them through their letters.

  1. 07/15/2025

    Episode 60: Those Guardians of Liberty

    Dr. Lauren Duval joins Kathryn Gehred to discuss a letter from Elizabeth Drinker to her husband Henry dated February 26, 1778. In 1777, not long before the British Army occupied Philadelphia, the Continental Congress exiled Henry and 19 other prominent Quaker men. In this letter, Elizabeth provides Henry with an update on life in occupied Philadelphia and the Scottish officer who has recently taken up quarters in the Drinker home.  Lauren Duval is an assistant professor of history at the University of Oklahoma and a Gibson Fellow in Democracy at the University of Virginia's Karsh Institute of Democracy. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the New York Public Library, the David Library of the American Revolution, and the Massachusetts Historical Society. Dr. Duval earned her PhD from American University in Washington, DC. Duval's book, The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence (Dec 2025), narrates the American Revolution and its aftermath from the vantage points of households in British-occupied cities    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.  Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker to Henry Drinker, 26 February 1778, Harverfod College Quaker & Special Collections, https://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/resources/hcmc-854.

    33 min

  2. 04/22/2025

    Episode 59: The Scheme I Undertake with Chearfulness

    Diane Ehrenpreis joins Kathryn Gehred to discuss a letter from Martha Jefferson to a Mrs. Madison dated August 8, 1780 in which Jefferson encourages women to join together and raise funds to support the Continental soldiers. This letter is one of only four known correspondences in Jefferson's hand. In this episode, Diane and Katy discuss some of the ways Jefferson's words have been misinterpreted in the past.  Diane Ehrenpreis is the Curator of Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. She has worked in the Curatorial Department at Monticello for twenty-three years, researching and building the collection. In her capacity as a curator, she supervised a complete study and reinstallation of Monticello's second and third floor rooms, as well as Jefferson's Private Suite. Currently, she is overseeing plans to reinstall the Dining and Tea Rooms to better interpret Thomas Jefferson's aesthetic and didactic intent. Forthcoming work includes an article co-authored with scholar Nicole Brown on Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson's role as an activist living in Revolutionary Virginia, one that was initially suppressed by her partner and fellow revolutionary, Thomas Jefferson. She holds an M.A. in Art History from Boston University and B.A. in Art History from University of Illinois at Chicago. 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.  "Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson to Eleanor Conway Madison, 8 August 1780," Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-03-02-0615. Esher Reed, "The Sentiments of an American Woman," 1780, Virginia Humanities, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/the-sentiments-of-an-american-woman-1780/. "George Washington to Esther De Berdt Reed, 14 July 1780," Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-27-02-0093.

    42 min

  3. 03/27/2025

    Episode 58: Our Unnatural Enemies May Be Turned From Us

    Dr. Emily Sneff joins Kathryn Gehred to discuss a letter from Polly Palmer to John Adams dated 4 August 1776, in which Palmer thanks Adams for sending her one of the earliest printings of the Declaration of Independence. In this episode, Gehred and Sneff explore Palmer and Adams's lifelong friendship, their experience getting inoculated for smallpox together, and military movements during the War for Independence. Dr. Emily Sneff is a historian and leading expert on the United States Declaration of Independence. She is a consulting curator for exhibitions planned for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration in 2026 at the Museum of the American Revolution, the American Philosophical Society, and Historic Trappe. She is also the curator of digital content for Declaration Stories. Her forthcoming book explores the dissemination of the Declaration around the Atlantic in the summer and fall of 1776.   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.    "Mary Palmer to John Adams, 15 June 1776," Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 2, Massachusetts Historical Society, https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/ADMS-04-02-02-0007. "John Adams to Mary Palmer, 5 July 1776," Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 2, Massachusetts Historical Society, https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/ADMS-04-02-02-0018.  "Mary Palmer to John Adams, 4 August 1776," Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 2, Massachusetts Historical Society, https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/ADMS-04-02-02-0047. "To John Adams from Mary Palmer, 25 November 1789," Papers of John Adams, Volume 20, Massachusetts Historical Society, https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/ADMS-06-20-02-0121.

    50 min

  4. 02/25/2025

    Episode 57: Those Tumultuous Assemblies of Men

    Dr. Cynthia Kierner joins host Kathryn Gehred to discuss a 1778 letter from Richard Henry Lee to his sister Hannah Lee Corbin. In a lost letter, Hannah previously expressed her frustrations that widows are being taxed without representation. In this response, Richard explains the cultural and legal barriers that prevent Hannah and other widows from voting.   Dr. Cynthia Kierner is a professor of history at George Mason University. She is a a specialist in the fields of early America, women and gender, and early southern history. She is the author of many books and articles including The Tory's Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America, Inventing Disaster: The Culture of Calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood, and Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello: Her Life and Times.    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.  The Archives of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation, Papers of the Lee Family, Box 2, M2009.057, Jessie Ball duPont Library, Stratford Hall, https://leefamilyarchive.org/richard-henry-lee-to-hannah-lee-corbin-1778-march-18/.

    42 min

  5. 01/28/2025

    Episode 56: The Most Dreadful Of All Enemies

    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/

    39 min

  6. 12/20/2024

    Episode 55: An Insurrection Was Hourly Expected

    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.

    47 min

  7. 11/26/2024

    Episode 54: I Am Frightened When I Look At Her

    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.

    39 min

  8. 11/05/2024 · BONUS

    Bonus: A Humble Origin Story

    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.

    3 min
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Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a podcast that showcases 18th and early 19th-century women's letters that don't always make it into the history books. Join historian Kathryn Gehred and her guests as they explore the lives of women and the world around them through their letters.

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