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209. Reading Letters by Early American Women with Kathryn Gehred (Summer Repeat)

Conversations at the Washington Library

Release Date: 09/01/2021

NOW AVAILABLE: Inventing the Presidency show art NOW AVAILABLE: Inventing the Presidency

Conversations at the Washington Library

Now Available on all platforms! In this new podcast from the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, we'll explore George Washington as both President and precedent. From the very origins of the US presidency at the Constitutional Convention to Washington’s final warnings in his Farewell Address, we will break down how one man shaped the Presidency—and the many times that it could have all fallen apart.

info_outline 229. A Final Conversation with Dr. James Ambuske show art 229. A Final Conversation with Dr. James Ambuske

Conversations at the Washington Library

In this final episode of Conversations at the Washington Library, Drs. Anne Fertig and Alexandra Montgomery bid farewell to former Digital Historian and host, Dr. James Ambuske, through a retrospective of his time and work at the George Washington Podcast Network.

info_outline 228. Editing the Adams Family Papers with Dr. Sara Georgini show art 228. Editing the Adams Family Papers with Dr. Sara Georgini

Conversations at the Washington Library

The Adams Family is one of the more prominent families in American history. They were at the center of the American Revolution, they helped create a new republic, shaped the young nation’s foreign policy, and later were central to the development of the history profession.

info_outline 227. Welcoming a Deserving Brother with Mark Tabbert show art 227. Welcoming a Deserving Brother with Mark Tabbert

Conversations at the Washington Library

In 1752, George Washington joined the Masonic Lodge in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was just twenty years old.

info_outline 226. Cross-examining Washington's Heir with Prof. Gerard Magliocca show art 226. Cross-examining Washington's Heir with Prof. Gerard Magliocca

Conversations at the Washington Library

When George Washington wrote his final will in the months before he died in December 1799, he named Bushrod Washington as heir to his papers and to Mount Vernon. He took possession of his uncle’s Virginia plantation when Martha Washington passed away in 1802.

info_outline 225. Doing Public History with Dr. Anne Fertig show art 225. Doing Public History with Dr. Anne Fertig

Conversations at the Washington Library

Why is the way that we remember the past oftentimes different than historical reality? And how can we use public history to inform conversations in the present about events that took place centuries earlier?

info_outline 224. Unpacking the Slave Empire with Dr. Padraic Scanlan show art 224. Unpacking the Slave Empire with Dr. Padraic Scanlan

Conversations at the Washington Library

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the British Empire began dismantling the slave system that had helped to build it. Parliament banned the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, and in 1833 the government outlawed slavery itself, accomplishing through legislative action what the United States would later achieve in part by the horrors of civil war. Abolition has long been a cause célèbre in the British imagination, with men like William Wilberforce receiving credit for moving the empire to ri

info_outline 223. Attending a Lecture on Female Genius with Dr. Mary Sarah Bilder show art 223. Attending a Lecture on Female Genius with Dr. Mary Sarah Bilder

Conversations at the Washington Library

In May 1787, George Washington arrived in Philadelphia to attend the Constitutional Convention. One afternoon, as he waited for the other delegates to show up so the convention could begin, Washington accompanied some ladies to a public lecture at the University of Pennsylvania by a woman named Eliza Harriot Barons O’Conner. Eliza Harriot, as she signed her name, had led a transatlantic life steeped in revolutionary ideas. On that May afternoon she argued in favor of the radical notion of Female Genius

info_outline Introducing Intertwined Stories: Finding Hercules Posey show art Introducing Intertwined Stories: Finding Hercules Posey

Conversations at the Washington Library

We're delighted to bring you one of the bonus episodes from our other podcast, Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon.

info_outline 222. Winning a 222. Winning a "Compleat Victory" at Saratoga with Dr. Kevin Weddle

Conversations at the Washington Library

The Battle of Saratoga in September and October of 1777 was a decisive turning point in the American War for Independence. The American victory over the British in northern New York put a stopper to London’s dreams of a swift end to the war, and convinced the French to openly declare their support for the colonial rebels. It was, in the words of one American participant, a "Compleat Victory." 

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If you pull any decent history book off your shelf right now, odds are that it’s filled with quotes from letters, diaries, or account books that help the author tell her story and provide the evidence for her interpretation of the past. It’s almost always the case that the quotation you read in a book is just one snippet of a much longer document. Perhaps, for example, Catharine Greene’s letters to her husband Nathanael offer the reader insight into some aspect of the family business she was running while Nathanael served in the southern theater of the War of Independence. But what about the rest of the document? What about the quiet moments when someone like Martha Washington asks after a family member, describes the state of their own health, or apologizes for a hurried scrawl, the result of the writer trying to catch the next post? And as valuable as collections like George Washington’s papers are, how can we write more nuanced and complete histories of the American past by reading letters by early American women? On today’s show, we welcome Kathryn Gehred, who is tackling that question by exploring the lives of early American women, one letter at a time. Gehred is a Research Editor at The Washington Papers Project based at the University of Virginia, where she is also on the team at the Center for Digital Editing, which is publishing documentary editions of historical manuscript collections online. Gehred is also the host of the new podcast, Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant. On each episode, Gehred and her guests break down a letter written by early American women and put it in context to show what is often obscured by the so-called juicier quotes you might find in your favorite book. Gehred joins Jim Ambuske today to talk about her podcast, how her training as an early American women’s historian, Monticello tour guide, and documentary editor informs her approach to it, and some of the exciting letters she’s discussed so far. And as a special treat, stick around after the credits role for a preview of Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant featuring Gehred’s conversation with our colleague Samantha Snyder about a letter from Elizabeth Willing Powel to George Washington. About our Guest: Kathryn Gehred is a Research Editor at The Washington Papers Project at the University of Virginia. She is also on the staff of the Center for Digital Editing. A historian of early American women, Gehred is the host of the podcast Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant, a women’s history podcast which showcases the kinds of eighteenth and early nineteenth-century women’s letters that don’t always make it into the history books.