Episode 3 - Skipping About

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant
Episode 3: “Skipping About”
Published on  July 21, 2020

Note: This transcript was generated by Otter.ai with light human correction

Kathryn Gehred 

Hello, and welcome to Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant. This is Women's History podcast where we feature eighteenth century women's letters that don't get as much attention as we think they should. I'm your host, Kathryn Gehred. I'm a research editor at the Papers of Martha Washington, and today I am joined by my colleague, Mary Wigge. She is also a research editor at the Papers of Martha Washington, and I am thrilled that she's offered to help out with this podcast. Hi, Mary.

Mary Wigge

Hi, I'm so excited to do this.

Kathryn Gehred 

All right. So Mary, can you tell our audience a little bit about what we do at the family papers?

Mary Wigge

Right? Sure. Well, so we search for documents that were either written by Martha or to Martha. And this will include financial and legal documents, and we transcribe them annotate, and do some research and then publish all these letters and documents for access to the public

Kathryn Gehred 

What's your favorite part of our job,

Mary Wigge

Getting to see the actual eighteenth and sometimes even earlier, eitheenth century documents and earlier documents is just so worthwhile. And it's just fascinating to like, find these letters. And just really, it's curious to find out where they're actually located. Because,

Kathryn Gehred

Absolutely.

Mary Wigge

We found them all over the place.

Kathryn Gehred 

It affects the way you think about sort of the craft of doing history, what you think about where the letters are in the archives, how they got in the archives, how they're organized in his collections, and I found it really enlightening. Yeah, absolutely. Do you have an example of something not to put you on the spot, but example of something that you've found in transcription that you think is really cool that you get from actually looking at the written document that you don't necessarily see once it's out in typeScript?

Mary Wigge

Okay, okay. There was this one letter that it was, I remember, we found it. I don't even know in what state but it was over at the Cloud County Historical Society.

Kathryn Gehred

Okay.

Mary Wigge

Okay. And the document, I think it was Martha to Fannie, her niece, Fanny Bassett, Washington. This document that Martha's suggest hitting Fanny's husband, some breast milk, to, if not cure to, like kind of help him with his ailment which he was suffering from tuberculosis, so maybe he wouldn't cough up so much blood, which is in the letter. It was both fascinating, and then what was even better was our colleague, Lynn went to Mount Vernon and found Fanny Bassett Washington's account book, and you can see that she made a purchase for breast milk, like, around the same time period, so you can kind of you can make the link that she was probably getting that for her husband.

Kathryn Gehred

And these are just some of the amazing find in the world of documentary.

Mary Wigge

Absolutely. It's not even the weirdest stuff. Yeah.

Kathryn Gehred 

Next question, what first drew you to documentary editing.

Mary Wigge

So I studied history in college, and I got a part time job working over at the Presidential tape recording center with the Miller Center. And so I was transcribing Lyndon B Johnson, presidential tape recordings, and so

Kathryn Gehred

Those are some juicy ones.

Mary Wigge

It was really interesting, especially when he started like hanging up on people, purposefully. But I had no idea what documentary editing was until getting the position that we're in now as a research editor with the Washington Papers. And so I first started with transcription of George Washington's financial recordings, financial paper, sorry, from transcription, then it was evolved into doing more document, documents search for Martha's letters and documents. And then it moved on to transcription and research and annotation, and it's just basically broadened into the full scope of documentary editing. So yeah, I think it started from those early days.

Kathryn Gehred 

Cool. Well, again, I just want to thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. And now, let's get into one of these letters, I thought, so as you can probably tell Mary and I know quite a bit about George and Martha Washington, which is why I decided to do a letter from one of Thomas Jefferson's granddaughters today, so we can all get a little bit out of our comfort zone. I'm going to read the letter in full and then Mary and I are going to dig into what's really fun about it and what we can learn from this particular letter. So here is a little bit of context about the letter we're going to be reading today. Alright, yeah, so this is a letter from Thomas Jefferson's granddaughter, Cornelia, from January 28, 1818. Little bit of background about Thomas Jefferson's family. He had six children, total, who survived to adulthood two daughters with his wife and four children with an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings. After Jefferson retired from the presidency, he invited his oldest daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, who he was very close with, some people even say sort of unhealthily close with. He invited her to move into his house Monticello with her entire family, she ended up having 11 children. So, it was a large family and the grandkids left behind a lot of really interesting letters and correspondence. Martha Jefferson Randolph had actually gotten a very good French education when Jefferson was minister plenipotentiary to France for five years. So, unlike a lot of other young women at this time period, Martha got a very strong education, and she was able to pass that on to her children, her sons and her daughters. So particularly, you'll see in compared to some other women's letters of the time, letters from Martha Jefferson Randolph's daughters are really funny. They're really clever, and you can almost see that they're sort of competing with each other a little bit about who can write the funniest and the cleverest letter. Now, this one is from Martha's fifth child, Cornelia Jefferson Randolph. If you've ever been on a tour at Monticello, I used to be a tour guide at Monticello, we would just call her the artist. She drew quite a bit. We have a lot of sketches of Monticello from Cornelia, but when you read her letters, you find out there's a lot more to her than just being an artist. So, 1818 was when this letter is written. This is well after Jefferson's retirement from the presidency, Cornelia's 19 years old, she's writing to her 20 year old sister in law, Jane Hollins Nicholas Randolph, who had married Cornelia's oldest brother in 1815. And she's writing to Jane from Jane's family's house in Richmond. So, Cornelia and Ellen were visiting Richmond for the social season. And it's Cornelia's first time doing the whole introduction into Richmond society thing. And, she's writing sort of news back to her family at home, her older sister Ellen is with her,  Ellen was not being very kind to her sister on this trip, there's some other letters where they write about it. Just to give a little bit more background, Ellen didn't end up getting married till she was twenty-eight, which, for that time period, was very late indeed. And Cornelia actually never married. So once we read the letter, I'll see if you can get any idea why.

Mary Wigge

Just also have to say like, we haven't even gotten into the actual material yet, but like this, the fact that they never got married, very impressive, and Ellen getting married at the age of twenty-eight. Like, I could seriously see, like people pulling the term spinster to her, which

Kathryn Gehred

100%

Mary Wigge

Which Martha Washington's, like granddaughter does pretty regularly. And she's only like, eighteen when she's writing her letters. She's like, I will be a spinster for life.

Kathryn Gehred 

Oh, yeah. Yeah, they start talking about being Spencer's, like once they hit twenty.

Mary Wigge

It's so hard.

Kathryn Gehred

It stinks. I'm...okay. Okay. All right. So and now, without further ado, that's a little bit of the context of the letter. I'm going to read it.

"Richmond, January 28 1818.

This is the last letter I shall probably write whilst I am in Richmond My Dear sister, & I must write as if for a wager, to be able to finish it in time for the post, I have just reciev’d yours & would not answer it at all but that such favours from you are so rare that they must not be neglected when they do come & I wanted to tell you that if you expect to find me a stylish lady you will be most wofully [. . .] disapointed, I have been twitted at least a thousand times since I have been here with my country breeding, & these have been in such a rage that at the boobies of this place should daring to take notice of it that even if I had [. . .] had any uneasy feelings from diffidence, that would have got the better of them, but really I never was more at my ease in my life than from the very first day of my arrival here at first I was so disgusted with the nonsense of the people that I sat silent from disdain as much as from any thing else, but I soon found that I should spend a most dismal time if I was on the high ropes the whole time I was here, besides which I found the people were not such fools as I thought them at first & that they only had a different sort of folly from what I had been accustom’d to, & getting accustom’d to every thing I have been very well content ever since, but now I am tir’d again & want to go home. at first I found the parties the most tiresome places in the world & that I should in all probability go away without getting acquainted with any one, for no one would talk to me because I would not talk to them I thought this was a very hard case but there was no help for it unless I should humble myself to make some advances, or at least when advances were made to me to show some inclination to get acquainted with the people who made them & now some young ladies & myself are very good friends when it suits our convenience, I sat near a young lady for about half an hour the other day, for the first ten minutes we sat in stately silence which might have lasted till doomsday for aught that I car’d, but she could f endure it no longer & tho’ she did not appear to like my looks any more than I did hers, she turn’d to t me suddenly with a most fascinating manner & sweet smile & ask’d my opinion on of something that she had just done m a moment before, I answer’d her as well as I could, but I am not quick at all at making or turning off a compliment so I never attempt it, & the girl tho’ she seem’d to expect one at that time was oblig’d to be content with out it, however as I did not say any thing repulsive she we enter’d into conversation & [. . .] before we parted were such good friends that we shook hands & promis’d to meet again very soon & often; I meet that same girl constantly but it happens never to suit her or me to recognize each other & we never have spoken since. I still found tho’ that I spent a great many weary hours, & that the easiest intercourse among the company was while dancing, so I determin’d that if it was possible for me to get over my indolence & dislike to skipping about I should pass my time more agreably, but another a great difficulty now [. . .] presented itself I had forgotten the figures of the reels & cotillons as entirely as I if I never had learnt them but this was not allow’d to be an objection at all by most people, so the last party I went to I persuaded myself to dance the gentlemen with whom I danc’d undertook the part to play the part of dancing master, & then past a scene which at least afforded me a great deal of amusement, my first partner Mr Nivison was quite as ignorant as I was & our case was only known to one other, Mr Wickham who stood behind & beckon’d & made signs only seen to us two who were dancing, I was still more diverted when I danc’d with Mr Wickham himself, & I had leisure to attend to his instructions & encouragement, I wish you had been there I think he would make an admirable dancing master, but I am sure I am very much obliged to him.

I am delighted beyond measure to hear that poor little[. . .] Trist has fallen in love with Elizabeth—[. . .] must fold up my letter for it [is]¹ time to send it to the post office kiss dear Peg & Pat for me & believe yours affectionately

Mary Wigge

The way when I first read this, I was like, oh my god, it's nineteenth century social awkwardness in all its glory.

Kathryn Gehred

I find this one of the most relatable letters that I've been able to find.

Mary Wigge

She writes, like an actual human being, I really enjoyed for that segment, because I don't know which part I enjoyed more. She's like, the "so disgusted with a nonsense of people." It's like, essentially an eye roll, like I'm done with this scene, but she's also extremely perceptive. So, she will understood that like when she actually got to knew them that it was a just a different, as she says, a "different sort of folly," which yeah, I thought I really liked that phrasing, because it makes sense. And the fact that she's essentially getting in so many ways, kind of looked down on for her country breeding and her, her fashion is nothing new.

Kathryn Gehred 

See, now this is something that I've been thinking about, because she is the granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson, who you would think that that I mean, her grandfather was president of the United States that that might outdo her country breeding and lack of good manners, and so it's interesting because like, the family is heavily indebted this time. And I do wonder if maybe she wasn't able to afford the same nice dresses as everybody else. And maybe Thomas Jefferson, who I've always imagined as a weird nerd. Just pass that gene on.

Mary Wigge

Okay, so this will show that I didn't really do as much research before this. But out of curiosity, did Cornelia do any travel with Jefferson?

Kathryn Gehred 

No, no, she, I mean, I think when, alright, let me think so she's twenty and 1818. A teen. So she was pretty young. During his presidency, she was probably maybe like, ten years old towards the end of it. So she might have been a little kid and visited in DC, but she really wouldn't have been taking part in that society. So she probably had spent most of her life a little bit holed up in Monticello.

Mary Wigge

But like, I mean, even like traveling abroad, because it doesn't her sister Ellen travel abroad to England?

Kathryn Gehred 

Ellen does, but that's later. So, oh, yes, her Ellen ends up marrying a man named Joseph Coolidge, who? Okay, so I've don't have the hundred percent research on this, but it seems like he's involved in like the opium trade in China. I would go to China, which is pretty wild. And also, I think, one of, another one of our sisters. They they several of them travel, Cornelia does not she sort of ends up mostly living in Virginia, her whole life.

Mary Wigge

Okay, okay. Well, the fact that she's like, I don't really care what they think I can believe I roll again. It's like, I don't care.

Kathryn Gehred 

It's like a roller coaster. She'll say, everyone's so nice. I've never been more comfortable in my life. I hate it. I want to go. Everyone's great, but they're also idiots.

Mary Wigge

But I should also like she's not making an effort like, I know, it takes energy to put put in an effort when you're in a new social scene and you're getting to know everybody, but she's like, 'Nope, I'm done with this. I want to go home.' It's very blatant.

Kathryn Gehred 

 Yes. But then also, I do think that she is she's funny. Like she's describing. She's purposefully describing things in a way that she knows is funny, which I very much enjoy reading like an absolute right.

Mary Wigge

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. A great. I love the part. It's my favorite line. So I might have cracked up. But she's like, might have lasted till doomsday for all that I cared. Okay, well.

Kathryn Gehred

She's like, Oh, I'm gonna sit next to this girl, and I'm just gonna ice her out.

Mary Wigge

But I've been there, I've totally been there. And I totally have done the whole like, oh my god, we're friends forever. It's like fake BFFs just completely faking it. And then you run into them all the time, and then you just act like you've never met them in your entire life.

Kathryn Gehred 

Again, highly relatable. I wanted to define there's a sentence where she says that she was thoroughly twitted. Let me see if I can read that again. "I have been twitted at least a thousand times since I've been here with my country breeding. And I've been in such a rage at the boobies of this place daring to take notice of it." So twitted, if you're not a lady of the eighteenth century and you don't know what that means, means to censure upbraid a person in a good humoured or teasing way to find fault with to blame or to taunt. So I feel like she was just getting a little bit roasted.

Mary Wigge

Definitely, but the way I saw it, I agree with you. But if they're teasing her, then that means that there's some slight truth. Which means that if, if you were to look at a connotation, I have my opinion. I'm like, there's some social underlying connotations here. Like they virtually do care, like what her fashion is, and the fact that she's not meeting at like social expectation,

Kathryn Gehred

Right?

Mary Wigge

And how she appears. I'm like, teasing. Okay, maybe, but they're being sarcastic. There might be true. I don't know?

Kathryn Gehred 

Yeah, no, I. Yeah, I agree. I sort of feel like this letter is like reading Pride and Prejudice, but from Mary's perspective.

Mary Wigge

I agree. And it doesn't help that they there's a Mr. Wickham involved.

Kathryn Gehred

Oh, my gosh.

Mary Wigge

Oh, man, like the dancing. I just didn't even know where to start. The dancing like reminds me of Mr. Collins and Elizabeth, but the dance instructor. I wanted, I mentioned that I was going through some of Martha Washington's letters, and she makes note of a payment to a Mr. Christian who turns out to be a Frances Christian who was a local Virginian dance instructor. And so a journal there's in the fittings, journals, and letters, there's a quote, describing Mr. Christians. Well, discipline, who apparently was very strict, okay. And okay, so here's the quote, "Soon after dinner, we repair to the dancing room. Again, I observe in the course of the lessons that Mr. Christian is punctual and rigid and his discipline so strict, indeed, that he struck two of the young misses for a fault in the course of their performance,"

Kathryn Gehred

Wait, he struck them.

Mary Wigge

Yes, it's even said, even in the presence of their mother "of the mother of one of them, and he rebuked one of the young fellow so highly as to tell him he must alter his manner, which he had observed through the course of the dance to be insolent and want on or absent himself from the school." Dance instruction was taken very seriously in the eighteenth century and the fact that she forgot all the dance, all the dance steps, I understand, I can commiserate but I find it very surprising, or something in eighteenth century definitely would not have gotten a great response from this mystery. But I also got the sense that she got a little smitten with this Mr. Wickham?

Kathryn Gehred

Yes, I also very much got that perspective, a little bit of background. I don't know a huge amount about dance instruction at the eighteenth century, but I did want to dig into it a little bit. Because I've always wondered while I was watching, Pride and Prejudice and movies at this time, how everybody seemed to know all of the steps, all these dances. So for one thing, this is a highly reassuring letter that not everybody did. But, I looked into a little bit about the history of dance instruction at this time. And what they would do for the most part is there would be these traveling dance instructors that would go to like a big house in the area. And they would let it be known that they were teaching dance for whatever period of time they were going to be there and other sort of wealthy people in the area would send their children off to the to this house. And they would all get instructed like that. So, if you have somebody like this, Mr. Christian, that's like swatting kids around the ears. Like, that's if that was his job like that's so that's a wild, and then b, I found out that at the end of the dance classes, they would have a huge dance party where even the parents of the kids would dance with them as well. So, I thought that sounded kind of fun, actually.

Mary Wigge

Oh, that's really cute.

Kathryn Gehred

And so working at the Papers of George Washington, George Washington was nothing, if not a dancer. I don't know at all about Thomas Jefferson in dancing. I mean, I'm sure he did. He was in Paris for five years, but that's something that I really don't know. I do know that his daughter was not very good at the whole high society fashion type thing. She actually when she was at school, the her teachers wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson that said that she was just dressing badly. He wrote his like teenage daughter letter that said, "if you are a slogan or a slut, at the beginning of the day, you will never face the impression you have made."

Mary Wigge

Oh, my God.

Kathryn Gehred

Yes, and again, slut did not mean what it does today.

Mary Wigge

Well, still, that's a real talk to give to your daughter.

Kathryn Gehred 

So I like to imagine that this passed on a little bit to Martha's next generation of kids, that they were just also not this was not the type of society that they excelled in. Okay. Oh, but Mr. Wickham back to the handsome Mr. Wickham, right. I don't know if he's handsome or not. But she does say in the letter. "I wish you had been there. I think he would make an admirable dancing master, but I am sure I am very much obliged to him." Right. That I mean, that seems a little fun. And so I think I want to part of what me and Mary do for our job is if somebody has mentioned by name within a letter, we try to identify them. Now, I didn't have a lot of time to do a deep dive into this. But there was a very wealthy Wickham family in Richmond around the time that was related to the attorney John Wickham. So this might have been John Wickham, but he was about fifty-five At this time, and if you read it the way I read it, that she kind of liked dancing with Mr. Wickham, it could also be William Fanning Wickham, of Hanover, Virginia, who was about twenty-five years old.

Mary Wigge

I think you're, I think you're closer.

Kathryn Gehred 

Just from just from the context of the letter, that's who I would I would lean towards and I think that William William Wickham is related to John Wickham,

Mary Wigge

Right? I think he's his son. Okay. Yeah. See,

Kathryn Gehred

I didn't go that far.

Mary Wigge

I briefly also like skimmed through some, like some of the research that you went. And, there's a number of they might be located at the Virginia Historical Society, letters between the Wickham family like, especially William Fanny Wickham, and to Thomas Jefferson.

Kathryn Gehred

Okay, that's probably it, then.

Mary Wigge

Yeah.

Kathryn Gehred

Okay.

Mary Wigge

Um, but this Mr. Nivison, I would love to meet him to know, to see his dancing in the first place.

Kathryn Gehred 

But the whole idea of just there being two people that have no idea how to dance, and somebody standing behind them, like pointing out where to turn and stuff like that, it just cracks me up. I love that.

Mary Wigge

My second favorite line in this entire letter is "However, as I did not say anything repulsive. We entered into conversation." Well, that's good. You know, as long as you said something relatively sane.

Kathryn Gehred 

That's the line that I most related to. I am constantly replaying conversations over in my head after I end them and thinking, 'Oh, I mean, I wouldn't have used the word repulsive, but it fits the feeling.' Yeah, no, that's also like a hilarious image, too. I tried to look up Mr. Nivison, Nivison, my apologies. Don't miss it. And I this one, I'm pretty sure is William Tazewell Nivison, who, well, I can tell you, he was a Notary Republic. I'm sure other people know more about him as a person. But that's what I found. Born, 1789 died 1821. So actually, only a couple years after this letter was written. Yeah, he was young. Yeah. But he was a he was a gentleman of the right age and family connections, who I thought might end up at a ball where Thomas Jefferson's granddaughter would be. Oh, that's another thing I wanted to bring up about balls of the time. There were public balls and private balls, which a public ball anybody who bought a ticket could go to like a season tickets.

Mary Wigge

Yeah.

Kathryn Gehred

And private balls were held in people's homes. So, January to 18th. This is still the Christmas holiday party season in the south in Virginia at this time. So, I'll bet there are a lot of public and private balls to choose from for this sort of social scene. So Cornelia when she's talking about meeting all of these people and not liking a whole lot of people, that's what she's talking about.

Mary Wigge

And related to that, during George Washington's presidency, Martha Washington is also paying for tickets to go to assemblies and taking her granddaughter.

Kathryn Gehred

Yes.

Mary Wigge

Yeah, Eleanor Parke Custis. And I, it's definitely a great introductory into the social scene, because what a way to network socially which I mean, I think would have been to Cornelia's benefit. Sounds like she put in an effort at a certain point until, you know, it's time for she wants to go home. But, ya, no, certainly like a way to really connect with other people. I mean, I mean,

Kathryn Gehred 

I like part of me really wants, like, feels like that would be super fun. But then the other part of me knows that I am Cornelia. As I mock Cornelia. I know that I bet. This is who I would be.

Mary Wigge

Honestly, like, the entire time I was reading this letter, I was like, This sounds extremely, like relatable. And like, similar to Pride and Prejudice. Yes. I just saw the entire layout in this one letter. It's just shared so much just like about social engagement, and essentially social awkwardness.

Kathryn Gehred

Yes.

Mary Wigge

Just like, I don't know, just like, as I was saying, like networking, but also fashion and then conversation. And yeah,

Kathryn Gehred 

I mean, so that's another interesting thing about being a young woman of this class at this time, is you really do have a brief window, where you get to go to these fun parties and things. So it's like, I mean, a lot of people get married quite young, the woman that she's writing to her sister in law, she's only twenty years old, but she got married when she was seventeen. And, at the end of the letter, Cornelia signed off saying, kiss dear Peg and Pad for me. So, this is a twenty year old that has a two year old and a one year old daughter, already, and so one of the reasons that Cornelia might want to update or with the news is this is sort of this fun, young, youthful lifestyle that's so brief, such a brief window in the lives of a lot of these women, that you sort of have to take advantage of it.

Mary Wigge

Yeah. So okay, so as you were introducing these, like, cast of characters. You mentioned Ellen, so she gets married, when she's twenty-eight. So like, it almost makes me wonder if she just held out as long as possible, because she knew her stead of like having this like fun social occasion was going to close on there. 

Kathryn Gehred 

That's a great, yeah, that's a great perspective. I know a lot of Jefferson's granddaughters had a hard time getting married. There's a funny letter from their mom, where she talks about, her one of her youngest daughter Septicemia, named Septicemia, because she's the seventh daughter, not even seventh child, seventh daughter,

Mary Wigge

That's just lazy.

Kathryn Gehred 

And she, when she's sending her out into the social scene, she's like, congratulations, your dowry, or is it your dour is five cents a year? Good luck. Because Jefferson was over $100,000 in debt when he died, people were pretty much aware of this. So you really, if somebody was going to be courting these daughters, it was either because they were were just like, really just great people.

Mary Wigge

She had a great personality.

Kathryn Gehred

Great personality. Maybe they're beautiful. Septicemia was known for being absolutely stunning. And even Ellen was, was people would write that she was beautiful. Of course, it's tough when you're reading these letters about like a Founding Fathers granddaughter, everybody always describes them as beautiful. But they didn't have any money. So there wasn't a for this sort of class of culture where a lot of Pride and Prejudice type time period people are getting married for money for financial security. And there on that count, these women didn't have a lot to offer. Oh, and the bit where she talks about I wish I knew more about the gossip where she says poor little Trist has fallen in love with Elizabeth. That could be two different people named tryst. Nicholas Trist ended up marrying Cornelius sister Virginia or maybe his brother Hore Browse Trist but I don't know if he's living in the area at this time. That would be something I'd have to dig more into, but I one of my favorite things about women's letters is when they're just writing the gossip of whose court and who and who's in love with who.

Mary Wigge

It's fascinating. Like, how much like social like, gossip, rumors and like, has not, it's just I also just hasn't changed.

Kathryn Gehred

Oh, yeah.

Mary Wigge

At all. And so it's a real eye opener when you get to like, do this research and like, nothing has really it's all pretty much the same. Social Dynamics. social connections. Yeah,

Kathryn Gehred 

Yeah, yeah, we don't have to memorize dance moves anymore. But the vibe of being young and single and meeting new people is very much similar. Do you think in your heart of hearts that she actually I was cool with nobody liking her or people were just being super mean.

Mary Wigge

I could see both ways.

Kathryn Gehred

Yeah. I mean, I can see people being super mean. And then you decide, well, I'm done with this.

Mary Wigge

I like so I love the fact that she's like, I'm so disgusted with the nonsense of the people. She's not of the like, of them. It's the people. So as, as if she's like, looking down on them, but I, I can almost sense like, she wouldn't bring it up unless she was kind of like, insecure, or just like she was questioning it and maybe questioning like her own behavior, unless she just wants to share this, like, great amount of detail with her sister in law, which was could also be the case. This is hilarious. This is like the stuff that I love. I totally forgot about, but it's so juicy.

Kathryn Gehred

Oh, yeah.

Mary Wigge

And it gives so much like life and personality to like, a piece of paper that you're reading. And so yeah, yeah, that's fascinating. 

Kathryn Gehred 

Yeah, you get these, these these old letters, and the humanity just sort of comes out of them a lot, particularly in family letters, and when women are writing to each other.

Mary Wigge

Oh, it's fantastic.

Kathryn Gehred

To all of my listeners, I want to thank you very much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode, I will have show notes and cite some of the sources that I found on the website when I post this. And as ever, I just want you to know that I am your most obedient and humble servant. Thank you very much.

Kathryn Gehred 

Hello, this is Kathryn again, just checking in to say thank you so much for listening to Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant. We've got some exciting things coming up on the horizon. For one thing, I've been working on a website that's just about ready to go live. Also, if you want to follow us on Facebook, we've created a Facebook group for Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant. As always, you can find us on Twitter and Tumblr as well just search for Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant, or humservt. The next episode is going to be a little bit of a change of pace instead of featuring a letter from a wealthy white slaveholding woman as a lot of our previous letters have been, this letter is actually coming from an enslaved woman herself. So, please stay tuned for that. It definitely shows a different perspective of womanhood in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century from what we've seen so far. And I'm pretty excited. I think it came out pretty well. Once again, I just want to thank you so much for listening. I've just been so excited about the sport the podcast is received so far. And, I hope to keep being able to continue making episodes and find more and more of these interesting and diverse letters. If you know somebody who might be interested in listening to the podcast, let them know. Word of mouth is always the best way to spread awareness by the podcast, and once again, I just can't tell you how grateful I am. Thank you very much