Bitchy History - July 24, 2023


Episode 16： Women Spies and the American Revolution


Episode Stats


Length

49 minutes

Words per minute

208.28

Word count

10,336

Sentence count

69

Harmful content

Misogyny

38

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

14

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.100 Welcome to Bitchy History, the history podcast that would like you to remember that war is not segregated by gender and women have been kicking ass and taking names since war was invented. 0.80
00:00:13.880 So we're jumping ahead a bit here on the timeline of American history because my internet provider decided that this was a great time to sever a trunk line or something and my internet has been out of service for roughly three days with no idea of when it will be back on. 0.58
00:00:27.660 and it is actually surprisingly difficult to upload an entire episode using just the hotspot
00:00:33.120 on my phone and this episode aside from this intro that i'm tacking on was already completed
00:00:38.680 and uploaded to my podcast host this episode was originally scheduled for august 7th when we'd be
00:00:44.120 a bit closer to the american revolution on the podcast timeline but that's okay i think you can
00:00:49.440 keep up thank you for your understanding and next week we will be back to the french and indian war
00:00:53.840 and the rise of George Washington. I hope you enjoyed today's episode at least as much as I
00:00:58.260 enjoyed making it. Welcome back to the show. We have another special episode today with guest
00:01:02.780 Allie Riley. Allie has a master's in American history, and her thesis specifically dealt with
00:01:07.000 female spies during the American Revolution. I'm going to shut up now and let her introduce herself. 0.84
00:01:12.440 Thanks, Meredith, for having me. Hi, everybody. I'm Allie. I got my master's in American history
00:01:17.380 from Monmouth University. I am based in New Jersey, and I'm currently finishing up my first
00:01:22.820 booked about women spies and even their roles in the american revolution and it will be released
00:01:27.500 later this year fantastic uh does it have a title yet or is it just kind of i'm calling it uh she
00:01:34.580 spies women the american revolution their heroic missions and i even revealed the identity of agent
00:01:39.940 355 and the culprit spy ring that is amazing that is great i'm waiting for it to come out you can
00:01:45.680 send me a link and i'll pre-order it just let me know when it's you know when it's absolutely uh
00:01:50.440 Yeah, I'll get it pre-ordered and maybe I'll do a review of it on the podcast later on too, just so people remember it when it comes out. 0.99
00:01:58.000 Yeah, I really think that women spies in the American Revolution are such an interesting thing. 1.00
00:02:05.780 Women have been, you know, involved in wars for a very long time.
00:02:09.660 And go back, we look at Joan of Arc, we look at, you know, women warriors have existed, you know, Boudicca, things like that. 0.81
00:02:16.280 But there was such a segregated understanding of male roles and female roles in the 18th century.
00:02:24.460 It becomes so fascinating to see how women kind of just ignored those and threw off the expected gender roles and got themselves involved in the war.
00:02:34.360 So, yeah, let's talk a little bit about your research.
00:02:36.340 Yeah, I found some information that was actually on JSTOR. None of this was any books that I read when I was doing my thesis that women created something called the homespun movement. And they were just breaking windows. They were protesting in the streets. It was really like the first rally cry of the American Revolution that women did. It was so tranquil in the colonies. But then once like the Stamp Act was passed, and King George III took over, these women just were not having it. And King George, they said, screw this, we're not doing it.
00:03:04.180 right and they decided let's make our own stuff we'll make our own cotton we'll make our own wool
00:03:08.380 we're not gonna buy exactly what they did they said i was just about to say that they didn't buy
00:03:12.400 anything that related to the british because they even made their own clothes and they just they had
00:03:16.540 to take over jobs that their husbands did they were like millers they were stone masonry they
00:03:21.480 did everything and it was just i was like to myself when i was doing my research why is none
00:03:26.500 of this ever mentioned i've been studying american history since i was 12 i'm going to be 30 in
00:03:31.160 september and i'm like where has this been why is this just on an article online and not any
00:03:37.020 history book i have read in my entire life yeah the closest thing that we get to it in in modern
00:03:42.240 pop culture i mean turn the the american spy show did include it to some degree which you know that
00:03:49.460 show was nominally historically accurate i don't know it's been a while since i watched it so there
00:03:55.800 were a couple things that i felt that were accurate but there was like one general i think that they
00:03:59.520 put in there that did not even exist right I can't remember his name off the top of my head but I
00:04:03.680 remember re-watching it when I was doing my research and I'm like I don't know this guy
00:04:07.400 I know Simcoe I know Arnold I know Washington obviously but I'm like who is this guy he never
00:04:13.320 existed where did he come from which could just be an affectation for for uh you know drama but
00:04:19.180 which I understand I mean yeah I get that but at the same time there's already enough interesting
00:04:24.320 stuff actually happening you don't have to make up a new person for it right I mean like you know
00:04:28.360 you got a war you got women protesting you got men on the battlefield what more do you need
00:04:32.440 right exactly more of the women's story i mean even what they did and even before you get into 0.91
00:04:38.060 the women's spying right women's spying is your focus but you've got these women who got the 0.87
00:04:44.240 homespun movement and then you've also got these women who are involved in uh you know in actually
00:04:49.540 fighting on the front lines like you've got deborah sampson going i mentioned a little bit
00:04:54.000 about her yeah yeah uh and all all of these interesting women who just put their lives on 0.69
00:04:59.580 the line in many ways uh mad ann bailey i talked about her a lot in my women's history class last 1.00
00:05:04.800 semester because she was so interesting uh you know took on a male persona and goes off into
00:05:10.120 the war under the name of samuel gay and becomes a scout and a courier right and just you know
00:05:15.560 does all of these things you have deborah sampson serving in the continental army uh you know my 0.90
00:05:21.660 personal favorite is uh nancy hart who she didn't fight on the front lines but uh she did shoot two
00:05:28.160 loyalist soldiers in her kitchen and held a bunch more at gunpoint until help arrived which is right
00:05:33.220 which is amazing yeah it is i mean i had a little bit of deborah sampson there what i loved about
00:05:37.920 her story too was that the fact that when she got wounded and the doctor checked her he was one of
00:05:43.640 the good ones that did not rat her out yeah she got away with it you were brave this is amazing
00:05:49.560 he had a nurse take care of her they let her go and i'm like there's like one actual soft side to
00:05:54.300 this out of everything that went down i said you're mad at women rallying for what they want
00:06:00.360 but this you'll let go yeah just let it you know let it pass yeah i think one of my favorite
00:06:07.400 one of my favorite people is women involved in the american revolution she wasn't on the battle
00:06:13.680 lines at all she didn't get involved in the war but i'm always super impressed by mercy otis
00:06:18.480 warren uh in her work because she was absolutely just like savage in her writing and how she
00:06:26.920 actually she took down you know the british monarchy and things like that in her writing in
00:06:30.660 a way that could have gotten her into a lot of trouble uh at the time she was a very fascinating
00:06:35.580 figure but um there were so many that just were so i guess you could say lucky they never got caught
00:06:41.220 right never got caught or at least they were they were you know privileged enough especially
00:06:45.780 mercy otis warren privileged enough to be in a position where going after them just wouldn't 1.00
00:06:50.660 have been a a good idea um maybe because they're women you don't expect them to do anything wrong 0.99
00:06:55.580 which is why spying worked so well for i think so right uh i know you probably don't want to
00:07:02.020 give away the uh the you don't want to give away the name of of agent 355 keep that for the book
00:07:08.140 let the people discover that when they when they buy uh when they buy the book right save it save
00:07:13.600 it for them that they have i think everybody's gonna be shocked though because when i found
00:07:18.020 some of the research on who i believe it is i was like how did nobody find this okay there was
00:07:24.180 another one jay store how did no one find this about her because i read george washington secret
00:07:30.160 six by don yeager and brian kilmeade and they just released the paperback version and they have an
00:07:34.840 afterward who was she and they said unless new evidence comes to light blah blah blah is most
00:07:41.240 likely not her and I'm like but you didn't find what I just found right you did not find the one
00:07:47.500 article that I think ties it all together right yeah and and it's honestly so fascinating how much
00:07:55.320 how many primary primary sources we have that still survive that are in the archives and
00:08:01.400 people think that the archives have been you know codified that we've gone through it that we know
00:08:07.000 what's in there we don't we don't know everything that's in those archives yet not for the american
00:08:12.080 revolution not for the civil war not for any of these we have stacks of papers that are still
00:08:16.740 left to be to be looked at and researched and understood by historians which is fascinating
00:08:22.060 a little off topic but it's like the one that like my favorite show was mysteries of the museum and
00:08:26.620 they did one on the lincoln assassination and they found a autopsy report on a man who claimed
00:08:32.420 to be John Wilkes Booth and I'm like it was discovered I think in like 1950 and they wanted
00:08:37.840 to exhume the body to see if it was really him but they couldn't do it right the court wouldn't
00:08:43.140 allow and I'm like but they said every detail matched the broken leg the scar and I'm like
00:08:48.360 it is so much hidden there's so much stuff in the archives and it's like we we need to do more work
00:08:56.020 on digging into those we definitely do I don't do much archival work I don't I don't get into it
00:09:00.580 most of my most of my research personally is in like the cold war mid-century era so a lot of it
00:09:07.220 has been digitized a lot of it has been dealt dealt with but yeah there's still so much left
00:09:11.620 out there that needs to be deeply looked at i mean there was i mentioned a little bit in my book about
00:09:17.440 some male spies and i mentioned briefly about nathan hale and like when he got captured and
00:09:23.400 then when i was doing a little bit more research say like maybe can i add a little bit more just
00:09:26.500 to like extend the book a little and there was an article published in July 1970 and it was just
00:09:33.200 found now that they think his cousin is the reason he was saying his cousin went to Harvard Nathan
00:09:39.000 went to Yale and I was like what it was published in the New York Times I'm like who hid this for
00:09:44.300 53 years and it's not even why are you hiding it for 53 years this is a big deal of course Samuel
00:09:50.500 denied it but I'm like why is this hidden right and it's not even that it's hidden it's just that
00:09:55.560 It's sitting there in plain view.
00:09:57.700 Anybody could access it.
00:09:58.840 And they said how they found it was there was, I think, an old desk.
00:10:03.400 It was about, I don't know, maybe the size of a normal armoire.
00:10:07.580 And they said there was a letter that was handwritten,
00:10:11.280 but I think one of their family members, and they said,
00:10:13.900 Samuel confessed to it even though he denied it.
00:10:16.420 And I'm like, a letter?
00:10:17.780 It was like the Declaration of Independence in the painting.
00:10:20.140 I'm like, in plain sight, in a plain dresser, it was hidden.
00:10:23.500 It just hasn't been.
00:10:24.680 And now it's at the Yale University Library archives.
00:10:27.440 I'm like, I need to go see that letter for myself.
00:10:29.200 I'm three hours from Yale.
00:10:30.460 I need to go see it.
00:10:31.660 Got to go take a trip.
00:10:32.780 Got to go plan a trip.
00:10:34.320 I said, I am driving to Yale now.
00:10:36.200 I need to see this letter for myself.
00:10:38.280 Because I'm like, how do you hide this article for 53 years?
00:10:40.960 In the New York Times, no less.
00:10:42.500 It's not like it's...
00:10:44.220 I was shocked when I read this.
00:10:46.280 I'm like, I have to put this in part of the book
00:10:47.720 when I mentioned briefly about the male spies.
00:10:49.940 I'm like, this is amazing.
00:10:51.620 the whole spy ring entirely is very fascinating but uh yes who would you say is leaving out who
00:10:59.000 355 is don't have to tell us that but who would you say is your favorite female spy from this
00:11:04.780 from this era like the the one with the most interesting story the one you're most fascinated
00:11:08.840 with well they're all i think fascinating in their own way and aside from 355 i definitely think um
00:11:15.280 lydia dower was incredible hiding in the linen closet and just like you know writing everything
00:11:22.720 down and just being as quiet as possible when how and his men invaded their home because they were 0.89
00:11:27.620 quakers so like they didn't really have a choice especially with the quartering act you had to 0.99
00:11:31.500 allow soldiers in the house no matter what and they thought well you know what she's not only a
00:11:35.800 woman she's a quaker so she she has to be nice to us right she's a nice woman she's a nice woman 1.00
00:11:42.240 she's a mother she's a wife and i just not gonna get involved in the war because quakers are all
00:11:47.820 you know peaceful neutral they're neutral if you understand the history of quakers we've
00:11:53.520 i've talked about this on the show before uh that is a wild misconception about quakers like the
00:11:59.300 early quakers were some rabble rousers they really were they got themselves in trouble all the time
00:12:03.360 i mean yeah society of friends literally yeah they were uh they were some some it caused some
00:12:09.680 trouble like you know you're talking about the puritan era where they're getting they're getting
00:12:13.060 hanged for their religious beliefs right during that period so they are they caused trouble so
00:12:18.940 they did i mean it was just amazing and then like the thought of just like you know telling the
00:12:23.460 general oh i need to go get flour for my family and even though that can maybe be the case of
00:12:29.060 course they're gonna let her pass because she's a woman but i wonder i couldn't find anything about
00:12:33.100 this i wonder if they knew if her son was in george washington's army and she gave him
00:12:38.620 the news of them coming to white marsh and if it wasn't for that she probably would have lost her
00:12:43.800 son she managed to save her kid and you know give the whole army very important yeah very important
00:12:50.840 information to everybody and i always do find that fascinating that she managed to you know
00:12:55.680 uh turn this whole thing around she got she was allowed to stay in her home even while general 0.91
00:13:00.580 howe was using it as a meeting place and all of this stuff they just they just ignored her and 0.99
00:13:06.380 let her be around because oh she's just a woman she'll bring us she'll bring us tea and she'll 1.00
00:13:11.760 make us food and she'll just be around no reason why her little female brain would ever even 1.00
00:13:16.880 comprehend what it is that we're talking about i mean it's kind of the way to be in your own closet 0.69
00:13:22.640 to take those notes and like not making a sound i'm like the pressure she had to be under right
00:13:28.840 i made sure no one heard her i wouldn't handle it yeah i mean and then like you know i mean having
00:13:36.640 family from long island going to do anna strong i mean that was i mean a lot of people thought
00:13:42.740 she was 355 and i can understand why because you know the ring was right there but like she didn't
00:13:47.840 have a code name she wasn't really connected to them but still i mean her and lydia's stories are
00:13:53.840 very similar especially because the british were at their homes yes exactly a very and and anna used
00:14:00.680 all the petticoats and all that and to the british she's doing laundry she's got 10 kids
00:14:05.080 right we're not going to suspect anything yes exactly she's how they never saw how the british
00:14:11.700 never saw caleb brewster on the boat in the long island sound i mean maybe i wrote this in the book
00:14:16.620 saying they probably assumed he was a fisherman they didn't know they weren't controlling the
00:14:21.460 waters they were not going to bother stopping every single boat they saw because imagine if
00:14:26.760 they did that would be so much work that would be an absurd amount of manpower being used exactly
00:14:32.140 and i think one of the most interesting things about the the war is that you have these british
00:14:38.740 soldiers coming in from from you know britain they don't really know the lay of the land they
00:14:43.960 don't really know the culture in many ways of of the united states what's going to be the united
00:14:49.960 states and they just don't understand how active everyone is in kind of defending defending their
00:14:57.680 the colony is defending their way of life and and they just don't understand how people lived their
00:15:04.380 lives and we were able to use these colonists were able to use their ignorance against them
00:15:10.580 in many ways where they didn't understand the lay of the land they didn't understand the culture
00:15:14.880 and it just you know and they right kind of dismissed americans as you know as uh hicks
00:15:21.100 that's really how the british felt about it and the one thing that i did question the book because
00:15:25.660 i also questioned when i wrote my thesis there was a woman named ann bates and she did it for
00:15:30.200 the british and there was an author who said oh well she's the most successful and i'm like
00:15:34.920 the only thing she really did was she pretended to be a peddler during the battle of white flames
00:15:40.780 and she went up and down the camp like three times one because she wanted to do spy activity too
00:15:47.300 but two because her husband was in the loyalist army she could do that but i'm like how is that
00:15:53.640 being the most successful to me i don't understand i mean yeah it's crazy to take three trips let
00:15:59.360 alone one but you gotta remember she's a woman she's not gonna get in trouble the continental
00:16:04.400 army didn't know she was the wife of a soldier so of course they're gonna think nothing really
00:16:08.280 much of her right like you know the peddler persona is a great way to like you know 0.85
00:16:12.840 pretend but i'm like is she really the most successful when you look at what her counterparts
00:16:19.200 did yeah exactly when you look at what the the american spy rings accomplished and what 355 did
00:16:26.020 going going back to the bat the battle at white marsh with uh with lydia darag one of my favorite
00:16:31.760 parts of that entire story is just how general how is like he's he's saying uh something's weird
00:16:38.260 about this something's wrong i kind of feel like one of the members of the dark family probably
00:16:42.400 sold us out they overheard the plans they told somebody about it or whatever and they go and
00:16:47.320 they question lydia when they get back to philadelphia and she's just like we were all
00:16:51.800 asleep i don't know what you're talking about right and i put that and i found an article i
00:16:56.860 mentioned this in the book they did not find out really what she did until two days later on
00:17:01.180 december 6 1777 they're like well we can't do anything now it's over that part's over we can't
00:17:07.920 do anything about her now we're away from the house yeah i did saw that that article that said
00:17:13.740 well they found out two days late i will say that my favorite i think of all of the the female spies 1.00
00:17:22.360 from this period that i cover in my women's history class uh is emily geiger because that is just a
00:17:27.760 wild story right i did mention her briefly yeah i mean being so young and just to be on your feet
00:17:34.000 that quick and just eat the note that you had to bring and memorize it and it was just and using
00:17:41.620 the ruse of saying oh I'm going to see a friend who had a baby I mean that's for 17 years old
00:17:46.160 that's incredible to think of that it is it is such an intense thing to put yourself through
00:17:51.880 and my memory is bad so I'm also just horribly impressed by the idea that she memorized the
00:17:58.200 message and then ate it I mean classic spycraft right there eat the message yeah eat the message
00:18:02.800 and they checked her and they found nothing so they're like all right we gotta let you go
00:18:05.920 obviously you haven't done anything wrong because we can't do they know on you and she's like
00:18:10.260 my brain it's like a steel trap i remember the entire message right up here yeah that is impressive
00:18:15.840 in and of itself uh i guess people had to have better memories back then maybe than they do now
00:18:21.460 of course i have adhd so that explains my bad right but and i have epilepsy so yeah i get it
00:18:26.780 we all we've all we're all kind of like oh if i didn't if i didn't write it down i wouldn't
00:18:31.200 remember what i had for breakfast this morning but uh emily geiger she's like nope i can remember
00:18:35.480 an entire secret message and deliver it to the military with no problem with no problem and
00:18:41.100 they're gonna believe that i knew what i'm talking about which is great so that was wonderful
00:18:44.520 uh and of course i there's also that uh sarah fulton uh i i didn't find too much about her
00:18:51.780 like before and after the war but she was in boston and she turned boston common to a field
00:18:57.160 hospital yeah and she fantastic i mean there wasn't much found about her they just said you
00:19:03.340 know washington was grateful for what she did she had her sisters helping her but there wasn't much
00:19:09.540 i found about like her early life i mean when i went to the boston tea party museum they just had
00:19:13.520 that one little snippet on her and i'm like that's it yeah it's it's just just that like she worked
00:19:18.860 and she did volunteering as a nurse she helped the continental army that way i do recall one
00:19:24.940 particular story which i don't know if it's if it's a true story or not you might you might
00:19:29.860 have more information on this uh it's the story that uh that sarah went that her husband john
00:19:37.900 was rowing home with a boat full of wood and he gets stopped by the british and the british sees
00:19:41.720 the wood and start to take off with it and sarah goes off after them stops the british cart and
00:19:49.020 just steals it she just hijacks the cart oh no see i didn't find anything on that they didn't
00:19:53.420 have anything on that i don't know if it's a if it's true story or not it may be some apocryphal
00:19:57.780 story that comes later but my favorite part of the story is that as the british troops are trying
00:20:02.740 to are preparing to fire on her for stealing the cart she just kind of looks at him and she goes
00:20:07.380 yeah sure shoot away like what are you gonna do shoot a woman who's taking a cart of wood back to
00:20:12.900 her family and that's like that's like another theory where they say anna strong was 355 because
00:20:18.140 they said that she was imprisoned with her husband on the on HMS Jersey in New York Harbor and they
00:20:24.140 said she gave birth on the ship but then Kilmeade and Yeager are like no there was no record of a
00:20:29.100 birth women were not allowed on the ships where did you get this idea from where where did this
00:20:34.200 come from right yeah like there are a lot of apocryphal stories that there definitely are
00:20:39.020 some of them are very interesting but oh yeah I mean like like I was in touch with the International
00:20:44.060 spy museum and they are convinced i went to their exhibit twice once like when museums first reopened
00:20:49.740 and then once again last summer and they are so convinced anna strong is 355 they actually have
00:20:55.300 her name on the plaque and i'm like i tried emailing them and i tried saying like look this
00:21:00.640 is my research i have my ma in this this is what i found this is what happened and they're like
00:21:06.020 no that that can't be true it can't be we i'm like why not and i'm like what why not and i'm
00:21:12.840 like why can that not be true because i said the i'm giving them all my research and the points i
00:21:18.080 found especially the one important point as to why who i think 355 is who she is they're like
00:21:23.800 that doesn't mean anything and i'm like yeah it does it means a lot i mean if they have something
00:21:30.180 that that refutes that like it would be nice for them to be like okay here here's our evidence of
00:21:34.960 why that's not an accurate assessment of this of this evidence um it would be nice for them to say
00:21:40.020 that right but they didn't do that they just kind of dismiss you and say well we clearly know more
00:21:44.400 than you do on this subject and i would say well yeah you're the museum i would hope that you know
00:21:49.760 more than me on this subject right but just to like can we can we have a conversation about what
00:21:54.280 i found and see right why you think it's not true or why you think i tried to do that i wanted to go
00:22:00.420 down there i said you know i'm three hours from washington dc let me come do a talk let's do this
00:22:04.880 and they didn't want to do it i think there's a lot of people who don't like to admit that they
00:22:10.900 maybe haven't done as much research as they should have on a topic uh and like i said there's still
00:22:16.300 so much stuff in the archives to look at there is no good reason to say we know everything and
00:22:21.900 there's no chance there's no chance that someone's going to discover something that's going to that's
00:22:26.120 going to change our perspective on this uh on this issue and you know it's my biggest problem
00:22:33.680 with the way that people look at history is they think well history happened there's no way for us
00:22:38.700 to change the history books and it's like we change the history books all the time we find
00:22:44.240 new information all the time i mean there's so many allowed to change that the way that we depict
00:22:49.660 it i mean there's when i was doing my research there's letters from the university of michigan
00:22:55.120 that helped me figure out who i believe 355 is and i'm like it all makes sense they were in a
00:23:01.660 together found i'm like i know who it is i'm convinced that my research is pointing to who
00:23:08.800 it is yeah and you know what you release it people read it they find that fascinating and then you
00:23:14.500 know if some other historian three years 10 years 50 years down the line looks at your research and
00:23:20.640 goes into the archives and says hey i think i found something that disproves this but it points
00:23:25.640 in this other direction i would be i don't know about you but i think you would be happy to be
00:23:30.760 like fantastic i am so happy that you found new information and you've continued this research
00:23:36.940 yeah just don't refute it altogether right that's the that's the whole you know that's the whole
00:23:42.720 point of historical research is to say let's dig into this and see if maybe our preconceptions
00:23:48.280 about this our you know previous ideas about what happened are wrong based on new evidence and like
00:23:54.660 i i appreciate that if somebody proves me wrong on a topic i am happy to find out that new
00:24:00.120 information that's yeah me too maybe i don't know yeah i mean like you know if you find something
00:24:05.240 that i could have made a mistake on fine but just don't throw me away altogether yeah yeah saying
00:24:10.440 hey this is a this is where i got my inspiration this yes because like i went to a museum on long
00:24:16.700 island just before the pandemic hit in january of 2020 and this woman she's a curator on that
00:24:22.580 and she just kept trying to tell me her opinion not the actual facts and then she has to understand
00:24:28.640 me well what does our master student think of this and I'm like you're wrong you're giving me
00:24:33.340 facts you're not giving me you're giving me your opinion you're not giving me the facts
00:24:37.140 yep the amount of times I've been researching this since 2018 like when I had that one class
00:24:43.200 that I did and I'm like that's what sent me going into the research about female spies I did a paper
00:24:49.420 on just the Culper ring and I said well you know what I want to further this to see what the women
00:24:53.540 did right and that's what i yeah she she didn't want to hear she's like you know oh this is this
00:24:58.800 this is that and i'm like you're giving me your opinion i want the actual even though i know a
00:25:03.860 lot of this i'm like you're not giving me the facts you're giving me your opinion there is a
00:25:08.860 difference between your opinion and what's actually true right a primary source some sort of
00:25:14.900 evidence-based discussion about what it is that you found that that disproves what i've found
00:25:19.820 right uh and there's a lot of i feel like a lot of gatekeeping it's an entirely different sub
00:25:25.820 top topic of discussion but there's a lot of gatekeeping yeah in the history field where it
00:25:30.240 is oh yeah i have a phd and i have a job and i have and so i i know what i'm talking about and
00:25:35.580 i don't have to disprove i don't have to you know actually give you the evidence just because i'm
00:25:39.360 the expert here and it's like well if you can't give me the evidence i don't see how you're the
00:25:43.720 expert right i don't see right that's like what i said at the spine museum i'm like you need to
00:25:49.380 give me some sort of leeway or some sort of information that makes you think Anna Strong
00:25:54.680 is 355. And there's been books, there's been research, there's been everything that says
00:26:00.920 she was not connected to the ring. Right. Some say Robert Townsend's common law wife
00:26:06.520 or like, you know, because they say he was in love with her, but I'm like, but then he
00:26:11.140 didn't want his identity known. And he had to flee Long Island once the British took
00:26:15.300 over his house anyway exactly yeah so and i'm like how would he have even met her because he
00:26:21.380 was a store owner in manhattan so like you know the british wouldn't suspect him really of doing
00:26:25.800 anything anyway because they're like well he owns the store what's he gonna do right and i'm like
00:26:30.160 gonna get involved in the war and i can't find anything on his common law wife it is very
00:26:37.140 interesting and that's the problem there is you know there is so much in the archives but then
00:26:41.660 there's a lot of things that didn't get saved in the archives and a lot of that has to do with
00:26:45.060 women's involvement in society and women's involvement in in just in business and everything
00:26:52.020 else during those periods of time I mean I'm not saved right I went to Rainham Hall which is
00:26:57.780 Townsend's home again the same weekend I went to um where they have the Anna Strong farm and
00:27:03.280 everything and I told the girl who I think 355 is and she was like you know when you think about
00:27:07.960 it that's not a bad theory and I'm like you understand you're understanding my research
00:27:11.640 yes exactly and i i think it's just fascinating to be able to find those new documents and figure
00:27:17.220 new connections like you know there are things like i said like back to like the nathan hale
00:27:21.680 article things are coming up all these years later that we didn't know existed i couldn't
00:27:26.620 believe that article i said it to my mother and she was like why was it in hiding for 53 years
00:27:31.820 i said don't you think i want to know that if it was published in 1970 and we're in 2023
00:27:36.740 three i think that a lot of times especially when it is just family records and things like that
00:27:41.980 people don't know what they have right now i currently have an entire suitcase full of uh
00:27:48.960 full of family photos and family documents and stuff like that and it's just sitting
00:27:53.440 in a room in my house and i keep meaning to go through it i keep meaning to go through those
00:27:58.760 documents and sort of like lay them out give myself a timeline do some research on the family
00:28:03.580 find out who these you know who these people are and things like that uh and so who knows what i'll
00:28:09.720 find i don't think i'm going to find anything groundbreaking because my family doesn't have any
00:28:13.740 you know any great secrets i don't think or any connections to anything super important
00:28:18.180 but at the same time you don't know until you start doing the digging right yeah i mean i do
00:28:24.060 ancestry and there was like stuff i found on my mother's father that like i said like there was
00:28:28.340 a picture of like his semen certificate from 1925 and my mother's like i've never saw that document
00:28:32.920 in my life and there was another there were other photos of him that were posted i'm like
00:28:37.660 where did these photos come from and there was a woman who was posting them i emailed her i said
00:28:43.060 look i am this guy's granddaughter like where did you get these photos and she refused to answer me
00:28:47.940 and i'm like i never knew the man he died in 1980 i never sadly got to meet him i'm like i want to
00:28:52.860 know about these photos right i never met my mother's father as much as i wish i had right
00:28:59.120 who are you like we're getting these photos and digging through digging through your family
00:29:05.640 history even if it doesn't change the perspective of like national history or international history
00:29:10.360 it changes your perspective just of your own family find out the things that your family did
00:29:14.840 that you you have no idea about uh and so it's very important i teach a i teach a community
00:29:20.200 history class as well which is all about you know teaching people how to how to go into communities
00:29:24.920 and have them, you know, codify and, you know, collate their family histories and things like
00:29:31.600 that. And often that's, you find some fascinating things when you're digging into people's personal
00:29:38.640 family histories. And you never know when you're going to find something that is like, oh, wait,
00:29:43.320 this is a document which drastically changes our understanding of an actual major historic event
00:29:49.080 because somebody had it stuck in a book you know as a bookmark because they just didn't know what
00:29:55.560 it was and they didn't think it was anything important just a random piece of documentation
00:29:59.500 a random picture a random letter and suddenly you have to reassess a lot of things about what
00:30:06.280 you knew about that event because of this one piece of document yeah there was like this woman
00:30:10.160 i'm friends with and she said her husband had this folded up piece of paper and he didn't really know
00:30:15.380 what it was and like she said her doctor is like this big history nerd so she brought it to him
00:30:19.480 when they said just hey for fun look at this and he goes why does your husband have a copy of the
00:30:23.760 Gettysburg Address I was like oh you did not just tell a historian that uh just tell me this
00:30:31.020 completely just stuck in stuck in stuck in his book just in a folder somewhere yeah I'm like
00:30:38.020 you don't tell an American historian this please tell me you to not just say those words to me and
00:30:41.860 she sent me the picture of it I was like take that to an appraiser like now right and get it
00:30:47.780 you have and in 1863 do you know what that could be worth and get that properly preserved like get
00:30:53.140 it into yeah archival papers and things like that to make sure it doesn't fall apart because that's
00:30:58.840 gonna happen yeah yeah I was like why are you hiding this why right and again I it's not you
00:31:06.200 know not really just hiding it's just ignorance like you just don't know what you have until you
00:31:09.720 know what you have and uh and it's you know more people should be looking at their family documents
00:31:15.960 and things like that things and not just because it's worth money but just because like intrinsically
00:31:20.360 it's it's got historic value for people uh for historians for you know the country that kind of
00:31:27.420 stuff before we started recording for the episode we were talking i said would save it would save 0.98
00:31:31.620 that conversation for once we started to record it she were talking about women uh and the way 0.75
00:31:36.460 that like women are depicted in war movies and things like that we were talking about that
00:31:40.520 earlier uh and i think that's a really fascinating point to be found there aren't actually that many
00:31:45.560 movies about the american revolution i will say there's not no um but they do focus on men
00:31:51.420 predominantly of course right it would be interesting to see like more more emphasis
00:31:57.520 put on the on the roles of women uh in in the american revolution um what would you what kind
00:32:04.240 of thing would you want to see a documentary or i would love to like i would love to like do a
00:32:09.420 documentary on this and just say like you know i mean i'm obviously a big history channel travel
00:32:13.620 channel lover and i just recently watched the one they did on fdr from world war ii and like
00:32:18.780 they've done ones on like 1776 they've done and of course like the new oppenheimer movies coming
00:32:23.480 out this weekend i want to see one done on this because there's so much of women's history that
00:32:28.400 is not told it needs to be shown yeah i mean this is a big deal and without them who knows how the
00:32:36.900 war would have turned out i mean i i say a little bit in my book saying if we these women did not do
00:32:40.900 what they did we could still be under british rule we don't know what could have happened the
00:32:45.600 war of 1812 would they have attempted spying then what if george washington had given up
00:32:49.640 after nathan hale died i mean he didn't know about these women till long afterwards but
00:32:54.980 what if after nathan hale's death he would have said i'm done i give up maybe we're meant to lose
00:33:01.220 history really does kind of turn on a dime right it's a very yeah you never know what thing is
00:33:07.460 going to have had a major impact and have changed the entire you know entire history of of a major
00:33:13.780 event it's kind of like when you look at world war ii and you go huh if uh so and so it ended up
00:33:18.980 in art school maybe this wouldn't have you know blown up right you never know what small event in
00:33:25.220 the past is going to drastically change i mean if these women stand stood back and did not do their 1.00
00:33:31.700 homespun movement and let the british just run rampant that war could have ended say at white
00:33:37.240 marsh in 1777 it could have been over in four years instead of seven yeah and a lot so much
00:33:43.320 that could have changed. I think that we drastically misunderstand how important
00:33:49.500 women's involvement is to events, right? Obviously, they couldn't necessarily vote. 1.00
00:33:55.580 They didn't really have political power or any of those things. But women do have influence on 1.00
00:34:00.880 their husbands. They have influence on their children. They had influence that if the women 1.00
00:34:05.760 had not supported the war effort, it would have drastically changed the entire perspective of 0.73
00:34:11.400 the colonies if they had not been in favor they considered this homespun movement the first real
00:34:16.600 political movement ever i mean there was nothing in the seven years war there was no espionage 0.75
00:34:21.920 there was nothing and then when these women came along once you know king george took power stamp
00:34:26.400 backpacks they said we're not backing down we're fighting this and they inspired so many more like 0.57
00:34:32.420 there was a woman who spied for the civil war yes several yeah several women and if it wasn't for
00:34:40.720 these women in the american revolution who knows yes absolutely and i think this story should be
00:34:46.960 told it needs to be it does yeah i think it definitely does and i would love to see more
00:34:51.400 of this on in every single war in american history right we we talk we do a lot of stuff
00:34:56.620 on world war ii i think world war ii is probably the most the most on film um oh yeah more of the
00:35:02.780 era but even then the women who were involved in the spy rings and things like that don't
00:35:06.760 necessarily get as much airtime as as you know the battle of the bulge or d-day or things like 0.95
00:35:11.620 that right we have some of that there's some fascinating women who were involved in you know 1.00
00:35:16.840 spying for the oss who were spying and things like that but the civil war definitely does not 0.84
00:35:22.160 ever talk about how much women were involved i mean just the number of women who disguised
00:35:28.360 themselves as men to join the military ranks uh and and fight are we have no idea how many there
00:35:35.940 were but we do know that there were dozens at least of the ones we know about uh which is such
00:35:42.300 a fascinating thing that women would go out of their way to disguise themselves and sometimes
00:35:47.240 they were doing it to follow their boyfriends or their husbands trying to stay close to them in the
00:35:51.480 war but other times they're doing it simply because they believed in the fight they wanted
00:35:54.860 to be involved in the fight and of course they were both confederates and union soldiers so it's
00:36:00.380 you know there's a lot of uh problematic stuff going on there if they really believed in the
00:36:06.420 fight and they were confederates but it's still really fascinating to see that they they did this
00:36:11.180 and many many cases they won medals they won uh you know they they won grandeur when they were
00:36:18.340 fighting in these wars not they weren't just you know substandard soldiers that because they were
00:36:24.480 women they were actually very very good at what they did when they right and you know george
00:36:30.060 washington would send letters to some of them thanking them from what they did you know the
00:36:34.740 american revolution museum in yorktown virginia would tell me like you know he valued their effort
00:36:38.400 of course he was worried about them because you know this is a big task to take on and even though
00:36:43.120 he knew they were women and said like you know i know that they're not going to get caught but
00:36:46.860 there is always still that chance yeah there's always a chance that a woman gets caught and
00:36:51.780 when you're actively engaged in in a military conflict even if you're a woman you're going to
00:36:59.620 get thrown in jail you're gonna get you know bad things may happen to you because that's what 0.73
00:37:04.180 happens to women in war a lot of whether you're actively involved in the fight or not women are 1.00
00:37:08.940 one of the biggest casualties of war uh because of just the violence that's inherent in there i
00:37:15.240 mean you you can only assume what would have happened to these women if they got caught like
00:37:18.540 sarah lydia emily you can only imagine what could have happened to them right and i would
00:37:23.680 Especially Lydia hiding in her own house.
00:37:25.780 Exactly.
00:37:26.140 I would like to believe that the kind of, you know, very structured legal system of the British would have meant that they would have been treated with dignity and not, you know, I was looking up the origin of a term the other day, not outraged, which was the old way they used to refer to to sexual violence in those days.
00:37:48.380 but you never know because yeah even if they you know have a perfect legal system who knows what
00:37:55.580 happens to someone once they're put in prison or once they're you know once they're uh you know
00:37:59.780 being attacked by by men for for being traitors essentially right i mean i always wonder like
00:38:05.920 saying like you know we know nathan hale was hanged the next day after he got caught what would have
00:38:10.800 happened to the women would they have been hanged would they have been thrown in jail what right
00:38:15.420 because women have a certain there is a certain cachet of being a woman during this time period
00:38:19.980 where you're not treated the same way legally because a lot of ways the legal system kind of 0.57
00:38:25.200 saw women as like a subspecies they saw them almost as children in a lot of ways they weren't
00:38:30.880 really treated the same way legally but uh but you know there are a lot of situations in which
00:38:35.360 the punishment for women was actually worse if you look back at the you know treat if a woman
00:38:40.980 in england in like the 1700s had killed her husband she would have been charged with petty 0.67
00:38:46.420 treason uh and burned and burned at the state like that was an actual like the salem witch trials 0.89
00:38:52.720 yeah you were if you were a witch you were either hang drown burn mostly hanging burning was more
00:39:00.200 the burning was more the european trials but yeah uh but yeah so these in terms of espionage 0.86
00:39:06.340 is it worse is it better like you know how are you punished if you're caught being a woman
00:39:11.860 which i think is the really interesting thing is that the women weren't caught so we don't know
00:39:16.320 what would have happened so we'll never know exactly we'll never know apparently women were
00:39:20.360 better than men at being spies for a variety because nathan hale don't know what happened
00:39:24.820 that's one mystery i wish i could try to figure out but since nobody was really ever captured
00:39:31.180 right i never know probably you know one of these days i'll dig into the uh to the legal history i
00:39:39.240 like looking at british common law and stuff like that and i'll see if i can find something in the
00:39:43.260 paperwork something in the legal in a blackstone's hit you know legal history or whatever and i'll
00:39:49.200 let you know if i find anything because if yes because any reference to a woman uh being you
00:39:54.140 know arrested and charged with spying and figure out what might have happened to them right because
00:39:59.240 it would be a fascinating thing to know i think because i'm trying to remember that i do know in
00:40:03.880 the civil war i think bell boyd got caught and i'm trying to remember what they did to her
00:40:07.760 when they caught her because rose o'neill greenhow didn't get caught but i know bell boyd did
00:40:13.860 i'm just trying to remember off the top of my head what happened to her
00:40:17.280 well maybe we can have another episode uh when i get around to the civil war i'd love to have
00:40:21.740 another episode on women in the civil war so maybe we can do some more research we'll get
00:40:27.200 back together and do an episode sequel to this book fascinating women in the civil war spying
00:40:31.980 because i don't remember reading anything in terms of the 1812 war spying i don't remember
00:40:36.820 the mexican-american war i don't remember reading any of it so why it jumps like two wars i'm not
00:40:42.520 really sure i would love to know unless maybe there were and i just didn't find anything
00:40:46.500 it's possible i would like to think that 1812 was a very brief war it didn't really require as much
00:40:53.520 uh espionage or things like that but i don't know that much about the war of 1812 to be honest
00:40:58.300 and similar to mexican-american war that was like a year and a half two years tops that was really
00:41:02.420 and then you got from 1848 to 1861 with no war and a lot of the war the the the war with mexico 0.89
00:41:10.220 is away from american soil so women were not necessarily going to be as involved and on the
00:41:16.640 front lines right because i mean i'm sure there were women in the camps and things like that just
00:41:21.180 because there always are but it was kind of a distant war so there's less possibility of women
00:41:27.680 getting involved on their in their average day-to-day life i think right and i think
00:41:32.800 similar to the spanish-american war too yeah exactly so i think that does explain a little
00:41:37.740 bit of that maybe but i like i said those are not my specialty areas of history so i would have to
00:41:42.500 do a lot more research into that and you know what we probably would find that there is more
00:41:46.720 there than we think there is because again absolutely we don't so many archives you never
00:41:51.260 know what's there exactly so many archives and so much of of women's contributions have been
00:41:58.380 downplayed for years through the in the history field because it's such a boys club and you know
00:42:04.680 we just aren't focusing on on it's like after cleopatra's reign in and then joan of arc what
00:42:10.800 is that like 300 years right all men and even when you look at cleopatra i don't know if you've ever
00:42:17.400 uh i had a student in my women's history class last semester who wrote a paper on cleopatra
00:42:21.620 which is a fascinating paper and uh one of the things that she kept noting was that almost all
00:42:27.800 of the books written about cleopatra write about her from the perspective of her relationships with
00:42:32.840 men like it's almost always about her relationship with with caesar about mark antony like it's it's
00:42:39.240 never really about her uh which is a very interesting point like we still kind of look
00:42:44.500 at women through the the eyes of men a lot right like i wonder why like say because i mentioned in
00:42:52.860 my book that espionage was around like european wars and they did that for all those years why 0.56
00:42:57.820 did the women not get involved like what would have happened if they did right and did they i 1.00
00:43:02.520 know we're just making some of the core information that we need to understand like were they treated
00:43:06.460 the same way as women here that like because they are women they're not going to get caught or would
00:43:10.600 they have captured and killed them yeah i don't know but it always said i think it would be 0.90
00:43:16.820 fascinating to do just a like a generalized history of women in espionage and just try to
00:43:22.920 find everything that could be found but obviously that would be a that'd probably be a life's work
00:43:27.200 kind of project it could be yeah that's why i that's why i said like you know when i did this
00:43:31.940 I spoke to my professor when I did that paper from the Culper Spimering and I said I feel like I could
00:43:37.860 turn Anna Strong if there were other women who did this into a thesis and he's like oh I got you on
00:43:43.040 the exam track I'm like no you know me I love going to museums I love going into archives I
00:43:47.380 love exploring let me do work on this and he's like if you can handle it I'm like I wrote 40
00:43:52.060 pages on this I can handle it I can write a paper on this I can write a paper about this so like
00:43:56.800 this book is like more of like a short story because I only focused on one war and some of
00:44:01.200 their stories like say sarah and emily are very short but i go into so much on who i think 355 is
00:44:08.400 i mean the chapter alone on her is just amazing it's huge i'm so excited to read it i can't wait
00:44:16.620 to get it out i want to do a documentary on this i think this should be told i want it on history
00:44:21.040 channel and i'm like you know you guys need to see this exactly and i'm gonna pre-order the book
00:44:27.240 as soon as it's ready for pre-order and okay you know if you need somebody to like proofread or you
00:44:33.260 know read it before it's out so I get the I get the early the early read sure I will give you a
00:44:39.320 I'll give you some proofreading I've done it before yeah I would love that I mean I get to know I get
00:44:45.120 to know the secrets before anybody else does which will be fascinating that's that it's totally
00:44:49.500 self-serving but you know if you need a proofreader I'm available that sounds good I mean like you
00:44:55.000 know i just finished up the other day i want to get it out there you know i was gearing towards
00:44:59.860 december but i'm like you know what it might be sooner if i can yeah i mean it takes time it takes
00:45:04.960 time to get a book out i totally understand that i mean i started doing this maybe that class was
00:45:10.220 like fall of 2018 so i would say maybe like february of 19 is when i really said to my
00:45:14.880 professor i want to turn this into a thesis i don't want to do an exam and now it's four years
00:45:20.800 later and so a lot of sweat a lot of tears a lot of research especially with a pandemic right in
00:45:26.480 the middle of finishing it up oh yeah when you couldn't go to museums for a few months and i'm
00:45:30.780 like thank god at least for online archives j store articles books yes at least i could order
00:45:36.160 from barnes and noble i had the same exact experience writing my thesis because it was
00:45:40.520 right during the pandemic as well and again i had to defend virtually it's stunk and i'm in the same
00:45:46.680 the same like boat as you are right now because I finished my thesis in 2020 and I'm still working
00:45:52.340 on turning it into a book so it's just it's you know it's this long it's a very long process of
00:45:56.760 doing the extra research and expanding it because you're you always realize after you're done with
00:46:01.760 the thesis that it's like wow I could have added this I could have talked about this I could have
00:46:04.880 done this and that's what I'm saying like my thesis was like a little under 10,000 words and
00:46:12.160 20 pages my book is like 22 000 words and 49 pages all right so you there's so much expansion
00:46:18.180 yeah i mean i feel like i'm like halfway with dissertation at this rate well i'm gonna keep
00:46:23.040 i'm gonna keep in contact keep in the loop with you so i when everything's ready i can just put
00:46:28.700 put it out to my tiktok followers and put it out to the podcast absolutely out uh and yeah thank
00:46:34.240 you so much for coming on uh thank you for having me this it was fascinating information 0.97
00:46:39.420 yeah talking about women's history it's i mean that's the reason why i call this bitchy history 0.77
00:46:44.620 right it's a little reclaiming yeah and i think this is definitely something that needs to be out
00:46:49.280 i want to do the movie the documentary on it i want the story told in so many different ways
00:46:55.000 yeah absolutely i and i wish the writer's strike wasn't happening because there's like a lot of
00:46:59.400 producers and directors i wish i could talk to i'm hoping the strike ends soon so i can like get in
00:47:03.860 touch with some people but you know what like we were talking about before to be started we 100
00:47:08.380 percent support the strike we hundred percent support it but it is frustrating when you can't
00:47:12.440 get things done it is it's frustrating you know with the book now done i'm like i can't call
00:47:16.900 anybody yet i can't talk to anybody yet right well it'll give you more time to like shape up
00:47:22.520 your elevator pitch right it gives you some time on that right you know it'll get done eventually
00:47:27.020 it's just uh it's a waiting game and i'm not good patience i fully understand so you know 0.56
00:47:32.340 yeah all right so uh thank everybody for coming to listen to us both bitch about history today 0.61
00:47:38.320 We love talking about women's history, so that's going to be something that Bitchy History is kind of moving into doing more of in future episodes. 0.74
00:47:46.680 This was a nice transition where I can start, you know, doing more episodes on women's history after this.
00:47:51.900 And as a reminder, you can find all of my social media information and contact information at bitchyhistory.com, as well as keep updated on the new episodes and content for the show.
00:48:01.360 And we've got a line of merch now, so, you know, you can go there and find the link to that.
00:48:05.780 uh ali do you have any final reminders or information for the listeners on you know
00:48:10.240 where to find you information about the book um i am on linkedin under alexandra riley r-i-l-e-y
00:48:17.080 i know i have a very common last name um the book i am hoping to get out at the end of the year i
00:48:22.180 will be posting more updates to linkedin as things get closer hopefully like i said once the writer
00:48:26.820 strike ends i will be able to get in contact with people about turning this into a documentary
00:48:31.240 because i think it needs to be told more i think so yeah i think this definitely needs to be told
00:48:37.040 more i would love for people to read the books see the movie once i eventually can get it out
00:48:41.580 and i can't wait for everybody to read it i think you guys are going to be shocked when i reveal who
00:48:46.640 i believe 355 is and i think it's going to change a lot of views on american history i fancy fascinating
00:48:54.780 i am so excited to read it when it comes out yes uh and a guest page is up on bitchy history.com
00:48:59.880 for you for Allie as well so if you missed any of the information about her or you're looking to
00:49:03.960 find more information uh if that's going to be on the website it's going to be attached to this
00:49:08.260 episode on the website so you'll be able to find it really easily and you know uh find find
00:49:13.240 information and if you need to contact her about about something like if you've got the inside
00:49:17.840 track on making a documentary about female spies you can find her and do that that would be great
00:49:22.680 so uh we'll see you guys here back on next Monday for our next episode and remember if you are a
00:49:28.640 Patreon subscriber that the Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss Sessions, the special subscriber
00:49:33.600 only episode of the podcast, will be coming out on July 27th.