Vulgar History - American Revolution, part 2： The Trans Quaker Guru

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to vulgar history feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is anne

00:00:14.360 foster and it's pride month it's june this is the time when we we celebrate the history and the

00:00:21.100 current status of and the future of all the 2s lgbtqia plus community and so with that in mind

00:00:29.100 we're having another queer history episode, another trans history episode. And today for

00:00:34.860 a third time, our special guest is Kit Hamm, who has been on the show. Initially, Kit's first

00:00:41.040 episode is talking about their book, Before We Were Trans, A New History of Gender, which is

00:00:48.180 such a good book. And actually, that is one of the references I use for today's episode, because

00:00:51.700 one of the people profiled in Kit's book is the person we're talking about today, the public

00:00:55.920 universal friend. Kit also returned when we did an episode about Elagabalus, the horny teenage

00:01:02.880 trans Roman emperor, who, side note, in that episode, I forgot to ask Kit to help with scoring 0.52

00:01:10.380 Elagabalus on the Scandaliciousness scale. So we did record that as well. And so that episode is 0.89

00:01:16.220 being re-released. If you go back, if you want to scroll back, you can hear how we scored Elagabalus

00:01:20.300 in the Scandaliciousness scale or also on the scoring. It's just its own special episode on

00:01:24.740 Patreon as well. But anyway, a third time. And I was thinking in the episode, I said,

00:01:29.260 it's a record-breaking third time. And I think it is. So in terms of guests on this show,

00:01:34.740 Ms. Hepburn is here. I mean, she's the most frequent guest star on the podcast. That is

00:01:39.760 my cat who may hear purring directly next to the microphone right now. But also, so for the podcast,

00:01:45.320 Gina Berry has been on twice, although we have recorded a third episode. It's just,

00:01:49.220 you haven't heard it yet. So Kit is the first three-time returning guest. Now, some of the

00:01:56.180 other people who've been on the podcast before, Alison Epstein and Lana Wood Johnson, I consider

00:02:00.260 honorary co-hosts rather than guests of the podcast. Anyway, Kit, I just, every time I encounter

00:02:07.260 something in trans history, I'm just like, I wonder if Kit's written about this. Like,

00:02:11.120 I wonder if Kit can come on the podcast because I just love talking with them. That's why I keep

00:02:14.780 having him back on the show. And Public Universal Friend, I think, is such a fascinating person.

00:02:19.640 And I'm so glad that Kit joined us to talk us through this story of American history.

00:02:25.100 You know, Kit is a British person, me as a Canadian person. We're both kind of objective

00:02:29.720 outsiders to the world of American history. But Public Universal Friend, quite a saga as we get

00:02:36.000 into it. Some similarities to the story of Elagabalus, just in terms of sort of like an

00:02:40.700 audacious person from trans history, whose spirituality is a very important part of their

00:02:47.140 life. Anyway, I do want to mention that other than Kit's book, Before We Were Trans, the other

00:02:52.640 major reference that I was looking at for this episode was an essay from the encyclopedia

00:02:58.380 Women in World History, which was written by Amanda Carson Banks in 2002. Anyway,

00:03:05.300 happy pride. Let's talk about The Public Universal Friend.

00:03:10.700 so i'm joined by kit ham welcome kit hi thank you for having me this is a record-breaking

00:03:21.120 third appearance on this podcast because i keep i can't not have you on it's a total delight to

00:03:26.880 be here is that genuinely a record am i like a recurring guest type record you are now officially

00:03:33.140 a recurring guest there's there's only a few people who've been on three times i think two

00:03:39.460 people and you're the second so but yeah and it's I want to let the listeners know as well

00:03:45.100 um and you I guess too so I've been doing this podcast now for four years and people have heard

00:03:51.080 me do episodes about queer history and about trans history and I've been learning both of

00:03:56.140 those things more about them on air with guests like you as people listen to me so just so people

00:04:02.020 know when I encounter a story where I'm like oh wait a minute I think this is a bit of trans

00:04:05.540 history i'm always like kit what do you take for this person if you study this person um like i

00:04:11.300 messaged you when i did the het shepset episode recently just to clarify like how do i talk about

00:04:15.520 this so i appreciate you being behind the scenes kind of my go-to expert oh no anytime like it's

00:04:21.660 really great to be able to talk about as we were saying off air the complicated figures from trans

00:04:27.880 history the people who aren't just like our inspiring ancestors but are actually bonkers 0.99

00:04:32.640 in various ways. Exactly. And so for people who perhaps haven't heard your previous episodes

00:04:39.120 with me, where we've talked about this, but I do want to just clarify it again. Can you explain

00:04:43.460 the way you do in your book and that you have on other episodes? Trans history in general,

00:04:48.220 it's not just the history of people who make one transition and stick with it. It's very expansive.

00:04:55.800 Yeah, exactly. I think it's really important that we distinguish between trans people in history,

00:05:00.620 which is basically people who've said that they were trans using that terminology, because

00:05:04.520 obviously terminology and the way we think about gender changes so much between times and cultures.

00:05:08.720 So distinguishing between trans people in history and trans history, which is the history that

00:05:14.260 shows us that gender has never been something that's tied to the body, has never been something

00:05:18.520 that's fixed or stable. And when we look at it that way, we find that there is so much history

00:05:26.420 that shows us the messiness and the complexness of gender. And I think that this story that we're

00:05:31.560 talking about today is a really, really good example of that. It might not be a trans person 1.00

00:05:36.880 in history, but it's absolutely trans history in the way that it shows us that gender has always 0.58

00:05:42.140 been something we can mess with. This is such a fascinating one, too. I'm not going to keep

00:05:48.240 teasing everybody. We're going to get into the story. But first, how do you suggest, and I mean,

00:05:54.120 a hundred people could suggest a hundred different ways to approach this but like this story like

00:05:59.260 i'm assuming they them pronouns because that's they they specifically did that in their life

00:06:06.280 after a certain point yeah i'm gonna use they them pronouns to talk about this person and it might be

00:06:12.760 that it would probably be also appropriate to use she her for the point before they transformed and

00:06:19.800 And I use the word transformed really advisedly because the narrative, the way this person understands themselves is having been a woman who then died and was reborn as a genderless spirit in a human body.

00:06:33.820 So maybe we go from she, her to they, them, but they, them would also be an appropriate way to capture all of that massive complexity.

00:06:43.360 Well, and that's also where I was thinking about, you know, because there's the whole thing about like, do you use, you know, like dead names and stuff?

00:06:48.560 and i'm like well this person was this person and then became a new person very consciously so it's

00:06:54.320 not like they said i was never jemima it's like no i was and then i stopped it so it's already

00:07:00.160 it's complicated yeah and arguably dead name is a really appropriate term to use for this because

00:07:06.020 literally identifies as dying and then coming back to life as a different gender and then also okay

00:07:13.740 so we're going to talk about the situation so that's what i'll do i'll start so jemima wilkerson

00:07:18.380 Wilkinson was born November 29th, 1752 in Cumberland, Rhode Island. So this is exactly

00:07:24.620 the time period all the episodes are so far in this series. We're talking about people who were

00:07:28.700 born in the 18th century, pre-American revolution, pre all the revolutions, but already the world is

00:07:36.640 just from like the slave trade and other trade, like there's so much international stuff going

00:07:43.080 on. People are moving from country to country. So it's already sort of a world that's kind of

00:07:47.800 influx is what what she is born into so this is another ongoing recurring thing in this series is

00:07:55.600 massive families so jemima is the eighth of 12 children of amy whipple and jeremiah wilkinson

00:08:03.460 and they were actually the fourth generation of the family to live in america which is interesting

00:08:07.740 because i think of like oh america is still a pretty new country but four generations in so

00:08:12.740 they've been there a while. So just some notable connections. So their great-grandfather had been

00:08:19.500 in the army of Charles I, emigrating around 1650. And then father was a cousin of Stephen Hopkins,

00:08:26.980 one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, which doesn't necessarily mean

00:08:30.980 this is like, wow, look at these connections. It just means it was a small world. And a lot

00:08:36.000 of people signed the Declaration of Independence. So the mom died when Jemima was around 12 years

00:08:41.960 old giving birth to the 12 child another recurring motif in this series kit it's just people these 0.53

00:08:48.720 women having so many children and then inevitably dying giving birth to one of them it's just like

00:08:53.620 oh yeah just imagine being pregnant for that much of your life and then dying in childbirth is

00:08:59.760 having been pregnant once i plan to never do that again no matter like never mind 12 times that's 0.97

00:09:05.200 ridiculous. It's women who spent their entire adult married life just being pregnant and 1.00

00:09:13.180 breastfeeding and being pregnant and breastfeeding. So this is a Quaker family. You know about 0.97

00:09:17.720 Quakerism. Is that an expected thing in Quakerism? Or do you know, historically, was it to just have 1.00

00:09:24.580 like be fruitful and multiply and like just have lots of kids? Was that a thing?

00:09:28.880 um it's probably just more of a kind of settler colonial thing at this time than it is primarily

00:09:36.080 a quaker thing um so yeah i grew up in um in a loosely quaker family was raised to quaker until

00:09:42.700 my um family left our local meeting house um but not particularly religious reasons just like

00:09:49.460 interpersonal ones but um it's not a religion that's big on be fruitful and multiply it's much

00:09:54.880 more about it's kind of i mean i like to think of it as one of the overall one of the most kind of

00:10:02.020 humane branches of mainstream christianity um in that um there's a big emphasis on god's light

00:10:09.580 being in everybody um on the valid validity of other religions they say the lamps are different

00:10:14.340 but the lights are the same which is really nice and on pacifism which i know is something we're

00:10:18.920 going to come on to um and so i think what's really going on with those 12 kids is the settler

00:10:24.320 colonial context in North America and the desire to really populate that land and outcompete the

00:10:30.060 Native Americans. I think that's what Amy is kind of being pressured towards from that angle.

00:10:37.180 Yeah, no, absolutely. And that's certainly something that we see a lot in most colonial

00:10:42.740 settler societies. It's just like we need to have as many white children as possible just to have 1.00

00:10:47.060 more population so the society of friends is that aka quaker is that are those interchangeable 0.91

00:10:56.240 or do you know exactly yeah they call themselves the society of friends other people call them

00:11:00.540 quakers they kind of reclaim that label later on but um initially yeah they're the society of

00:11:06.060 to themselves and so the quaker i'm just i didn't warn you i was going to be diving into quakerism

00:11:12.840 with you but i was like oh moves up just because i saw in your book that you were raised quaker

00:11:16.440 so were they religiously persecuted in england is that part of why they came to america

00:11:22.400 yes absolutely so um there was a big exodus of um non-conformist religion um to um to america

00:11:32.220 from england um there was i mean yes essentially non-conformist religion was really cracked down

00:11:38.900 on particularly um following the restoration of charles ii there oh i can read you some facts

00:11:45.580 that i've just looked up now and you can edit out me um i'm gonna know about it yeah yeah we'll just

00:11:50.560 we'll take out everything i'll be like tell me about this and you can just say some facts yeah

00:11:53.620 yeah yeah so the quaker act 1662 was an act explicitly aimed at persecuting the quakers

00:12:00.860 and there was very little tolerance of what was called non-conformist religion in england in that

00:12:06.480 period and so there was an exodus um of anyone who wasn't a kind of mainstream protestant during the

00:12:15.120 mid to um late 17th century which i know is when um the wilkinson family come over so that's sort

00:12:23.200 of like i've been learning i've never read up on the american revolution before i started doing

00:12:27.560 this series but now i understand the kind of the northern colonies were founded by religious

00:12:33.880 refugees and the southern american colonies were kind of like plantation business people

00:12:41.160 yeah absolutely and so that's a really important cultural distinction partly in the way that they

00:12:48.340 understand themselves and partly in the way they understand sort of the point of the usa although

00:12:54.660 you know the point of the um colonies that they're establishing you know are they primarily to

00:13:00.200 exploit the land to work the land and to exploit the enslaved people and make as much kind of

00:13:05.020 money and productivity as possible? Or are they to found a society that's more religiously pure 0.78

00:13:12.780 and more religiously exemplary than England that they left behind was? And so the northern colonies 0.86

00:13:18.980 have that idea of we need to be the religious exemplars that we want to see in the world and

00:13:26.820 we want everyone else to follow. And that's where a lot of that conflict comes from, really,

00:13:31.520 is those different kind of concepts and understandings of what they think that

00:13:34.880 country is even for. Yeah. And that was something I didn't realize till I started reading about this

00:13:39.120 was that whole North and South thing that I hear about more in the context of the American Civil

00:13:43.760 War started early. It was just kind of like there was already the North and the South were settled

00:13:48.400 completely differently so mid 1770s so jemima wilkinson is in her early 20s and switched there's

00:14:00.480 a lot of um leaving of the group by various people so jemima left the society of friends aka the

00:14:09.740 quakers to attend meetings with the new light baptists which is another group um and so the

00:14:16.800 Society of Friends disowned them because of this, which I mean, fair, like you left the group. So

00:14:23.620 you kind of disowned them first. Yeah. Yeah. You can't fire me. I quit. So at around the same time,

00:14:30.460 Jemima's sister Patience was dismissed from the Society of Friends as well for having an

00:14:35.600 illegitimate child. And two of the, because there were 12 siblings. And so at this point,

00:14:40.620 four of the siblings have been dismissed. Two of the brothers are dismissed because they went off

00:14:44.800 to train for military service and this is around the time that the um american revolution was

00:14:50.880 kicking off and lots of people were signing up for military service so just i would presume

00:14:57.820 for a family where religion was so important that the roots of the family had fled persecution to

00:15:05.440 come here to found this colony to to have four children disowned from the society of friends

00:15:10.620 it's probably very traumatic, very stressful for everybody.

00:15:14.160 Yeah, I'm sure that's true.

00:15:16.180 And I mean, thinking about the chronology, 0.99

00:15:18.100 it seems actually like the original emigrants

00:15:22.800 from the Wilkinson family were not necessarily Quakers

00:15:25.920 because they emigrated before Quakerism was founded.

00:15:28.060 So they'll have converted on American soil, 0.82

00:15:30.220 which will have made them actually

00:15:31.360 probably even more steeped in that community

00:15:33.980 because that's the only community they've got.

00:15:36.420 They haven't got anyone else.

00:15:38.080 They've only got the people around them.

00:15:39.320 so i think that yeah that instability from having four of your children disowned from what is your

00:15:45.780 main community in this new country is um is going to have been really real i think yeah so and i

00:15:52.500 would imagine that it was probably a very serious decision when jemima decided to switch from

00:15:56.580 society of friends to the new light backists and probably a lot was going on and then typhus

00:16:02.560 there's so many diseases that were around um jemima is stricken with typhus during an epidemic

00:16:08.260 was bedridden and near death asterisk potentially actually died so her fever broke after a few days

00:16:17.760 and the way that this this is where jemima can you talk us through jemima's transformation

00:16:25.940 so this is where jemima dies in 1776 this is the narrative that we have from jemima and well should

00:16:35.340 i say actually from the person that they became or the spirit that they became um what and their

00:16:40.660 followers so jemima dies from typhus and their body arises from its deathbed no longer jemima

00:16:47.580 but instead the spirit of god in what they call a tabernacle of flesh and they choose the name

00:16:54.640 not jemima but the public universal friend which is a name they take from the sect not um from the

00:17:04.840 tradition of traveling um quaker preachers who are known as public friends the public universal

00:17:09.820 friend is um you know a public friend who is universal who um can speak to everybody and who

00:17:17.280 very crucially is genderless so this is the point at which jemima she her pronouns dies the public

00:17:24.240 universal friend genderless they then pronouns arises from the deathbed they say it's a new name

00:17:30.580 which the mouth of the lord hath named so this is where we get the gender transformation this

00:17:36.260 is where this becomes trans history in a really really interesting way yeah so i like this um at

00:17:42.460 one point someone asked well the friend is how you refer to them in your book so that's how

00:17:47.540 i guess public universal friend is cumbersome to say every time someone asked the friend like

00:17:53.280 are you male or are you female and the friend replied i am that i am i mean you can't argue

00:17:58.700 with that yeah so exactly so this is not this is the term like there's there's other stories in

00:18:07.040 trans history where we now are just being like okay like is this how did this person see themselves

00:18:11.900 we don't really know but here they were very clear being like i am not male i am not female

00:18:18.060 i am public universal friend like genderless is how they describe themselves yeah and there's so

00:18:26.540 much evidence again like you say with a lot of trans history we're reading between the lines

00:18:30.480 we're um looking at accounts of how other people saw them or might have seen them or they might

00:18:36.400 have seen themselves here we've not only got first-hand testimony we've got all their followers

00:18:40.220 and we've got all the people who came to see them preach because they became a bit of a religious

00:18:44.460 celebrity and all of these people saying oh yeah this person they're not a man or a woman and this

00:18:49.960 is how they dress and we get a really kind of detailed picture much more so than we do in a lot

00:18:55.800 of transhistory like you say yeah exactly to me a relief because i don't have to i'm just like oh

00:19:03.780 how do i talk about this kit tell me what to do but but here's just like no public universal friend

00:19:08.380 is like here's what's going on i jemima is dead spirit of god is in me i am so yeah so right away

00:19:16.180 the way that this was described is um so yeah they refused to answer to jemima wilkinson ignoring or

00:19:21.900 chastising those who insisted on using that name. The friend asked not to be referred to with

00:19:26.660 gendered pronouns. And followers, because they did have a following and that increased, they

00:19:32.440 referred only to the public universal friend or sometimes the friend or sometimes PUF, which is

00:19:38.060 what I started calling them in my notes just to save time. So I'm just like, puff, the public

00:19:43.300 universal friend. And the followers avoided gender-specific pronouns even in their private

00:19:48.340 diaries which speaks to how deeply they respected and believed how this person wanted to be referred

00:19:55.920 to and this is just like i want to pause to just be like anyone today who's like oh pronouns blah

00:20:02.640 blah blah it's like 1776 like and earlier people were doing yeah and people were fine with it and

00:20:12.080 it was compatible with religion which is a thing worth emphasizing i think absolutely with christian

00:20:18.960 religion that um yeah exactly so just listeners note note that and so the friend dressed and this

00:20:27.200 is a time period in which there was a very clear distinction between male dress and female dress

00:20:31.960 and the friend dressed in a manner perceived to be androgynous or masculine so in long

00:20:38.940 loose clerical robes which is sort of which i don't know if that's i'm just picturing the man

00:20:45.400 on the quaker oats i don't know if he's wearing a role i mean to be fair pretty much actually

00:20:50.240 that's yeah that's pretty um that's pretty on it yeah so well here's the thing so it's like

00:20:57.300 this androgynous or masculine so wearing a long loose clerical robe so the friend is not wearing 0.64

00:21:01.940 trousers the way that a quaker preacher would dress was already kind of androgynous

00:21:07.260 in a loose robe. And that is what they wore with a white or purple kerchief or cravat 0.85

00:21:12.580 around the neck, which is like the Quaker Oats Man, which is a male presenting thing. 0.83

00:21:17.980 Did not wear a hair cap indoors, so women of the era would wear a cap in their head. The friend

00:21:23.240 did not do that. Outdoors wore a broad-brimmed, low-crowned beaver hat in the Quaker male style.

00:21:30.740 So beginning in 1776, the friend gathered a group of around 20 of their most devoted followers,

00:21:36.760 which is just pause because it was 1776 jemima died of typhus public universal friend was born

00:21:44.800 and that same year there's already at least 20 followers like the followers are right there

00:21:50.860 um and they went they traveled a circuit around rhode island and connecticut preaching their

00:21:55.880 message and i just i like this detail so they would process through so the friend would be

00:22:02.940 wearing their flowing long robe, followers riding two by two behind them on horses.

00:22:08.500 And they were originally well-received in these churches.

00:22:11.960 So this is between 1777 and 1782.

00:22:14.360 They traveled around and people were like, yeah, this message, we like it.

00:22:17.920 I assume the message is, I don't know, what do you know about what the message was?

00:22:21.840 Just kind of like everyone be nice to each other.

00:22:24.320 I don't know.

00:22:24.680 The message is mostly just basic Quakerism.

00:22:28.460 It's kind of regurgitated bits of the Bible.

00:22:30.400 a lot of the people who um went to see the friend preach sort of right back actually this isn't

00:22:36.060 anything particularly radical or interesting um i mean it's good like a lot of it is around

00:22:41.120 kind of anti-slavery messaging um and um there is maybe we'll talk about this later there is quite

00:22:47.300 a feminist strand um in the um beliefs that they had as well um but there's nothing like wildly

00:22:53.860 different from what you could hear from any other quaker preacher i think a lot of people came to

00:22:57.320 see them to see this amazing reborn genderless person perhaps more than to actually hear the

00:23:03.920 anything particularly interesting they have to say well and just what you mentioned about like

00:23:08.860 i just want to highlight the pacifism side of things so by now like it's 17 what did i say 17

00:23:13.760 77 to 1782 that's the period of the american revolution almost exactly so while the american

00:23:20.420 revolution is happening public universal friend is just like going around just being like

00:23:24.180 be cool to each other like bill and ted sort of message but also because quakerism

00:23:32.580 is incompatible with war like quakers weren't allowed to fight in the war that's why their

00:23:38.580 brothers were disavowed for doing military training so there's not you're not allowed to 0.82

00:23:44.180 participate in wars when you're quaker and then also it's anti-slavery so like you because every

00:23:50.760 person has the light of god within them so you shouldn't treat people in this way um yeah that

00:23:56.480 is a really important kind of aspect of quaker theology from the very beginning and that's one 0.99

00:24:02.820 of the reasons that it is such a threat to the english state that's one of the reasons why the

00:24:08.580 initial persecution in england where it emerges happens um because it's an incredibly non-hierarchical 0.92

00:24:15.080 religion um if you've ever been in a quaker meeting you'll know that um anyone can stand

00:24:20.500 up and say the spirit of god has prompted me to say something it's not something where yeah

00:24:27.160 everyone has to sit down and shut up and listen to a particular person although that's the main

00:24:30.620 kind of mode that um the public universal friend was preaching in um meetings are very very

00:24:37.280 non-hierarchical um and so that extends as you say to valuing everybody equally including enslaved

00:24:43.960 people um the flip side of this of course um and maybe we'll talk about this a bit more later on

00:24:49.820 is that the friend was also really invested in forming their own community, and that requires

00:24:55.980 land, that requires agitating for large amounts of land. And so there's this kind of incoherent

00:25:02.640 ideology around this anti-slavery message, but this perfect willingness to persist with

00:25:09.880 settler colonialism and to not perhaps see Native American people as having quite the same humanity

00:25:17.300 as the enslaved people they were agitating for the freedom of yeah it's complex it's um

00:25:24.600 on the podcast last week the listeners would have heard when we were talking about uh deborah

00:25:29.300 samson slash robert shirtless who we were looking at in the context of trans history as well

00:25:34.980 and also subtler colonialism like in order to succeed as a soldier to be accepted as masculine

00:25:41.420 um there's a famous story about them killing uh for truly no reason um just to kind of like

00:25:49.780 look cool um just murdering this indigenous man so it's like that angle of things i think is

00:25:57.820 really important to always mention in these stories the american indian people are often

00:26:02.560 just kind of invisible in these contexts but i will honestly i do want to say about the quakers

00:26:08.240 in general um because we do have some more episodes coming up about um actually starting

00:26:13.900 next week listeners um about some slave narratives and the we do i do talk about the quakers and how

00:26:20.900 they were really pushing for abolition and that's part of why it kind of started

00:26:25.500 around pennsylvania and places where quakers where there's a lot of quakers

00:26:29.540 so the friend um is traveling and preaching through rhode island connecticut massachusetts

00:26:36.520 in pennsylvania accompanied by several of this is interesting several of their still some of their

00:26:41.860 siblings so their sister patience the one who had been kicked out for having the child out of wedlock

00:26:46.720 was there supporting the friend as along as three other sisters one of the brothers so basically all

00:26:54.640 of the wilkinsons that had been disavowed by the society of friends were now traveling with the

00:26:59.880 friend which is nice um that they have that community um oh okay so this is where and i

00:27:09.540 don't know what the distinction is between a religious sect and let's say a cult um but there

00:27:16.820 are some cult vibes marketing i would say fair because the the friend starts to predict the

00:27:25.540 fulfillment of some of the book of revelation claiming that around april 1780 um 42 months

00:27:33.020 after they began preaching like the world would end which is a real cult thing that people still

00:27:39.640 do giving a specific day um i forget what happened that day there was like a a solar eclipse or

00:27:47.860 something and a friend was like that that was it that was i guess that's what i was thinking of

00:27:52.740 not the end of the day it's just a solar eclipse um let's say whether people now are like the

00:27:59.480 world's going to end on this day and when that day comes and goes they're like you all prayed

00:28:02.600 so well i guess i guess it didn't happen good job i wasn't wrong it's just anyway um okay so

00:28:10.980 the friend did not bring a bible to worship meetings which are initially held outdoors

00:28:14.640 or in borrowed meeting houses but instead preach long sections of the scriptures from memory

00:28:19.780 um in quaker what are they called meetings they're not services meetings is there usually

00:28:29.280 bible readings or is it people quoting from memory um these days um it's and and initially too um

00:28:38.220 it's mostly silent worship um so you sit in silence and then anyone who feels the need to

00:28:44.620 speak or feels the kind of spirit move within them um can can speak um but that speech may or

00:28:51.340 certainly today may or may not have anything at all to do with the bible a lot of the time um

00:28:56.320 these days if you were to go to a meeting it would be more likely to find a kind of

00:29:00.260 reflection on social justice um in many cases than it would be um sections from the bible

00:29:05.920 though clearly you know this is a different historical context um but yeah that's one of

00:29:12.420 the things that um is interesting about the kind of cult celebrity of the friend i think is that

00:29:19.940 in its focus on one individual it's not really all that quaker

00:29:25.080 yeah it reminds me and i my most of my contacts for understanding the new testament bible

00:29:36.840 is the musical jesus christ superstar but i'm like this is so much like jesus christ superstar

00:29:42.620 by which i mean i guess the bible but it's just this very charismatic person and just people

00:29:47.700 are following them place to place and they're preaching like it feels like that seems to be

00:29:52.140 the model that they're going after like a kind of jesus figure being you know dying and coming

00:29:58.820 back to life like it just seems kind of like they're doing a whole jesus thing you can see

00:30:05.140 why people accused them of pretending to be jesus right which they did deny as you know but um yeah

00:30:10.140 it you can see you can see where that came from it's not really a particularly big leap to be

00:30:14.800 like does this person think they're actually jesus yeah because they're it's a big jesus cosplay

00:30:22.120 um and so the meetings attracted large audiences some of whom formed a congregation of universal

00:30:29.200 friends making the friend the first american to found a religious community so later on when we're

00:30:35.000 talking about significance in the scoring that's significant um the followers were roughly like

00:30:42.400 men and also women mostly people under age 40 most are from quaker backgrounds though mainstream

00:30:48.080 quakers discouraged and disciplined members for attending meetings with a friend um who had long

00:30:54.720 ago well i guess jemima was disowned and now the friend i don't know if the friend had to be

00:30:59.700 separately disowned because it's like i'm a different person now but my notes say the society

00:31:04.560 friends disowned the friend so just to make sure if they were like oh no jemima was disowned but

00:31:09.840 i'm not jemima anymore you're also disowned the friend um so there were also at this point

00:31:18.800 the american revolution has ended and so but so there's these people who had been soldiers who

00:31:25.640 had been disowned for joining up to fight in the war of independence were now still just not allowed

00:31:32.420 to go back. It seems like a real shunning sort of thing. Like once you're disowned, like that's it,

00:31:37.600 you can't get back in. So these people were sympathetic and they opened meeting houses

00:31:42.440 to Universal Friends, like these soldiers who were still, probably would have wanted to still 0.92

00:31:47.600 be Quakers, but couldn't be. And so popular newspapers and pamphlets cover the Friends 0.87

00:31:54.840 sermons in detail, with several Philadelphia newspapers being particularly critical.

00:32:00.100 so in terms of celebrity i found this interesting like part of what we know about them and what they

00:32:06.380 did is because they were having huge meetings they're being covered by the press people who

00:32:11.060 attended the meetings would write letters about them like they were a big deal yeah they were and

00:32:17.160 i think like i said perhaps more because of their kind of unconventional dress and people wanting to

00:32:25.580 see this genderless being than because of anything they were actually doing theologically um you can

00:32:30.980 get the stuff they were doing theologically in many other places but you couldn't get seeing

00:32:36.380 someone who came back to life as someone with no gender that was what was kind of unique and

00:32:41.040 not all the attention was positive obviously um there was you know there were mobs in philadelphia

00:32:46.760 that attacked them with brickbats so it's not a case of necessarily adoring crowds it's more

00:32:54.560 fascinated and kind of rowdy crowds a lot of the time yeah i'm trying to think i mean there's

00:33:03.720 i don't know it's not it's not like a taylor swift moment where everybody who comes to see

00:33:09.360 them is a huge fan and loves everything they do like some people are going just to boo them

00:33:14.880 probably yeah noisy crowds gathered outside each place they stayed or spoke in 1788 apparently but

00:33:21.180 that didn't stop them so which is we don't know actually no i was gonna say we don't know why

00:33:27.540 they're doing this but we do because they were constantly saying who they were and what they

00:33:31.280 were doing like they wanted to spread this message and that's what was driving them on

00:33:35.760 or so they said was they wanted people to hear this message which as you said is just basically

00:33:40.940 quakerism but yeah as you said the coverage of them focused more on the preachers

00:33:47.240 ambiguous gender than on theology. Because again, their message was not any different from what

00:33:54.760 other Quakers are doing. Oh yeah. So the Friends theology was so similar to that of mainstream 1.00

00:34:00.540 Quakers that one of two published works associated with them, like they published two works. One of

00:34:08.160 them was plagiarism of someone else. Isaac Pennington wrote a book just called Works.

00:34:15.260 and then public universal friend republished it saying like works by public universal friend

00:34:20.160 um because they felt that people would like it they would take the message better if they thought

00:34:26.260 that the public friend had said it or that it would at least have more reach because everyone

00:34:31.240 had heard of the universal friends um yeah that's not really cool is it no no

00:34:37.700 there's a certain you know there's like you said the difference between a cult and a religion

00:34:45.100 is often marketing and i feel like the difference between you know a preacher and a grifter might

00:34:51.340 be similar so let's see this is some more stuff about the their concept so they rejected the

00:34:59.440 ideas of predestination and election um this is the kind of feminist stuff held that anyone 0.98

00:35:04.900 regardless of gender could gain access to god's light god spoke directly to individuals who had 1.00

00:35:10.220 free will to choose how to act and believe and believed in the possibility of universal salvation

00:35:14.940 so i think there's a bit later on more about feminism and women and stuff but i think that's

00:35:21.320 part of what's appealing about this message too because i had said like the people who followed

00:35:26.160 them it was about like half men half women generally like it resonated with different

00:35:30.440 sorts of people i mean it sounds like again like a very positive hopeful message like it's not

00:35:38.320 telling everybody like i was raised catholic so it's not telling everybody it's like you're all

00:35:43.620 Sinners repent constantly.

00:35:46.920 This is all just like, you know, God speaks to people.

00:35:49.140 We're all children of God.

00:35:50.160 I'm like, oh, this is actually kind of nice.

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00:38:57.960 so the friend was like other quakers called for the abolition of slavery persuaded followers who

00:39:04.420 held who like were enslavers to free the enslaved people um several members of the congregation were

00:39:10.740 black um and they acted as witnesses for many mission papers so i think that's the papers that

00:39:16.740 were freeing some people from bondage um this is all this whole section i'm getting this all from

00:39:23.520 this reference thank god that they have the public library women in world history i'm always excited

00:39:28.620 when somebody i'm researching has one of these essays because they're all really well researched

00:39:31.640 by academics but this is where they're just kind of getting into the friend preached humility and

00:39:37.140 hospitality towards everyone kept religious meetings open to the public housed and fed

00:39:41.460 visitors including those who came out of only out of curiosity and indigenous people which is a

00:39:47.700 strange way to phrase that um the preacher generally had a cordial relationship with

00:39:53.440 indigenous people and they had few personal possessions mostly given by followers and

00:39:58.200 never held any real property except in trust um and then we get into so the friend preached

00:40:07.280 sexual abstinence and disfavored marriage but did not see celibacy as mandatory and

00:40:12.680 accepted marriage as preferable to breaking abstinence outside of wedlock

00:40:17.700 what what's that do quakers think that or is this like we're getting some of the friends personal

00:40:24.940 ideas this is an early quaker thing it's not so much great thing now because obviously you know

00:40:30.780 things have evolved um but yeah it is um it is an early quaker thing and i guess it's part of

00:40:39.520 the emphasis on kind of plain dress um and abstinence from things like alcohol and tobacco

00:40:46.320 um which again were kind of early Quaker preoccupations um it's part of the abstinence

00:40:52.340 from um pleasures of the body um but I think I mean this is if we're thinking about um

00:40:58.020 situations in which um women could be liberated as a result of the friends preaching this is one

00:41:04.480 of them right if you don't marry and you don't have sex you're not going to be pregnant for your

00:41:08.800 entire adult life and then die giving birth to your 12th child right that's actually quite an

00:41:12.640 opportunity for lots of people yeah so the speaking of women so the preacher the friend

00:41:18.100 also said women should obey god rather than men and the most committed followers included roughly

00:41:24.960 four dozen unmarried women known as the faithful sisterhood who took on leading roles of the sort

00:41:30.760 that were often reserved for men the portion of households headed by women in the the society

00:41:37.000 so what is it like there's the friend and their followers are considered a society

00:41:41.760 yeah society of universal friends um are the is the name of their followers

00:41:47.080 different from the society of friends which is aka quakers yeah right so the portion of 0.95

00:41:53.240 households held by women in the society settlements was 20 and that's much higher

00:41:57.520 than in surrounding areas so this is what you mentioned earlier like kind of the feminist

00:42:02.220 angle like women this is a difference between general quakerism and what the friend was

00:42:08.200 preaching there's more opportunities for women right yeah exactly um particularly the idea that

00:42:14.620 women should obey god rather than men you know that hasn't really at this time made it into

00:42:19.620 the kind of mainstream quakerism despite their emphasis on non-hierarchical worship and yeah

00:42:26.680 as i said particularly that opportunity to embrace not marrying um is something that

00:42:34.860 it is a really a great way out of kind of compulsory heterosexuality and compulsory

00:42:40.380 pregnancy um for women who want that at the time yeah there's gonna be like again i'm doing this

00:42:45.780 whole series of a kind of people in the 18th century and there are several instances of women

00:42:49.860 who got married because that was kind of the only thing you could do and then when the husband dies 0.97

00:42:55.920 leaving you with debt like that's you're fucked like there's nothing you can do because you're 0.88

00:43:01.260 a woman and maybe you have all these children and you can't own property so the what the friend 0.99

00:43:07.200 was offering i can see where that would appeal to people who wanted something other so due to

00:43:11.860 the rising antagonism you're talking about you know the crowds what did you say attack them with

00:43:17.460 bats or yeah stones and brick bats um in philadelphia there's a real religious objection

00:43:26.300 to the idea that the friend is setting themselves up as a kind of religious exemplar and particularly

00:43:32.240 as we said as we mentioned those comparisons with jesus this person coming around with a

00:43:37.320 band of followers saying i was resurrected that's a little concerning to a lot of christians at the

00:43:45.140 time well and considering too in these areas like rhode island and connecticut like these are

00:43:50.320 the areas that were founded by people fleeing religious persecution in england so these are

00:43:54.620 people whatever fourth generation people religion is so important to them like they take it so

00:44:00.520 seriously and so literally that this would be seen as really a threat um and so uh 1783 they

00:44:08.380 transferred the headquarters to philadelphia which is where their only published work that they

00:44:13.800 actually wrote appeared the universal friends advice to those of the same religious society

00:44:20.000 recommended to be read in their public meetings um however philadelphia was only slightly less

00:44:25.540 intolerant and so in 1785 they returned to new england and then met sarah and abraham richards

00:44:33.120 so they had an unhappy marriage sarah met the society of friends as a widow and then with the

00:44:40.840 infant daughter took up residence with the friend and sarah also adopted the same look the same

00:44:46.600 androgynous robes look apparently the same dress and mannerisms as did a few other close female

00:44:53.320 friends and came to be called sarah friend so this is another where you're like cult or religion

00:45:00.240 like the fact that the followers started dressing like using the same mannerisms which you see in

00:45:05.660 fandoms i guess you know if someone's again a fan of taylor swift not that i'm calling that a cult

00:45:11.020 but people would swifties like they quote her a lot i think they would do the same dances as her

00:45:16.980 it's like you maybe cut your hair like her you dress like her because that's who you idolize

00:45:20.320 but here them dressing like the friend and adopting the mannerisms just does it's a little

00:45:26.960 culty to me is how it sounds but sarah friend became a high up person in this group um they

00:45:35.260 were entrusted with holding the society's property and trust and was sent to be sort of a backup

00:45:39.880 preacher in one part of the country when the friend was in another and maybe that's like

00:45:43.680 maybe that's why you want kind of doppelgangers so you can have lookalikes so you can do more

00:45:50.940 speaking engagements i don't know it's a good strategy i could do with some of them

00:45:55.960 so sarah friend had a large part in planning and building the house in which she and the friend

00:46:01.480 lived in the town of jerusalem and when she died in 1793 left her child to the friend's care

00:46:07.300 so sarah friend an example of followers so there's a lot of detail in here we don't necessarily need

00:46:17.160 to get to but the friend was meeting with some influential people of the time so we're in 1794

00:46:22.540 it's like post post american revolution like that ended 10 years ago but there's still people are

00:46:27.740 trying to figure out what is this new american country gonna be like how is it gonna work with

00:46:34.680 like the indigenous people and the colonists and like inventing this new country and how is it

00:46:39.600 going to be so the iroquois were involved in producing this treaty and the friend gave a

00:46:47.500 speech to u.s government officials and iroquois chiefs about the importance of peace and love

00:46:52.180 which the iroquois liked so i don't i don't know bringing the public universal friend i don't know

00:46:57.380 how i think there's i don't want to say that the other people writing these treaties were more

00:47:02.480 suitable for doing that because these treaties were all terrible and shitty but i also think

00:47:06.080 the public universal friend is a wild person to involve in these sorts of discussions because i 0.53

00:47:11.380 don't see them as having really both feet in reality yeah they have zero expertise in actually

00:47:18.100 negotiating humane treaties um i don't know what's going on there i yeah for some reason

00:47:25.760 But part of this was when I was looking through this, I was trying to see this whole series and finding connections between all the people, like some of those unexpected connections between people who you wouldn't think can connect back to each other.

00:47:38.140 So this is where the friend is involved with some of the great thinkers of the time, just because I think they were just a celebrity the same way that, you know, like the White House might invite some poets or something.

00:47:50.100 It's like, well, you're just kind of a notable person of the time.

00:47:52.440 so 1788 they decided to try a different climate for preaching and purchased a large parcel of

00:47:57.900 land in yates county near seneca lake in western new york state within two years it was ready

00:48:03.900 enough that the rest of the universal friends set out to join it making it the largest non-native

00:48:07.680 community in western new york one might say like a cult might do uh-huh well do you know when you 0.51

00:48:15.660 said cult earlier i was like this is the cultiest thing they do is create their own like cult

00:48:20.380 compound yes this is the part where i'm just like i i can't see how this is nautical okay but then

00:48:26.600 there's drama about land purchasing because i think partially because the public universal friend

00:48:32.760 is not concerned with like the laws of society and this is kind of like here's what i want to do

00:48:40.180 they're not a human right they're a spirit in a human body laws aren't for those

00:48:45.280 paperwork. That's not a thing for spirits to do. So anyway, I'm not going to get into all

00:48:54.840 these details, but the town became known as the Friends Settlement. There was a whole issue about

00:49:00.700 kind of like who owns this land, who is going to pay for this land, a whole thing about finance

00:49:07.560 years. More and more settlers kept coming and that drove prices higher. It was sort of like a

00:49:14.620 bit of a fire festival situation if you know what that is just kind of like people were coming and

00:49:19.760 there was not the infrastructure there to support a community because of course not because public

00:49:24.100 universal friend isn't like creating the infrastructure to have an actual functioning

00:49:29.140 society they're just like vibing with yeah god messages it's just like yeah but where are we

00:49:35.300 what's the water source friends like do you know anything about plumbing friends can you build

00:49:42.060 houses yeah no yeah so it didn't so there but there's other people in the group and maybe they

00:49:47.900 have some skills so at one point one person acquired a large area of land in canada um

00:49:54.540 but oh sarah friend still on the scene so she persuaded the friend not to move to canada so

00:50:00.980 i was like oh is this going to be canadian content no anyways they were just trying to find other

00:50:06.900 places to build their place um eventually so the new town that they settled in was along a creek

00:50:13.540 that emptied into the crooked lake cuba lake the new town which the universal friends began there

00:50:19.380 came to be called jerusalem which is really the name of the towns that a lot of christians found

00:50:24.700 in various places to be like this is that's just what there's so many places in america called

00:50:29.940 Salem and things because it's just like religious people see this as kind of like this is it's like

00:50:36.860 Jerusalem anyway so this enterprise did better I guess I guess there were some helpful people

00:50:41.840 with actual skills prospered in agriculture and lumbering by 1800 had increased to about 260

00:50:47.060 members but as it prospered there's issues about like well who's where's this money going and again

00:50:56.000 the friend is not a financier the friend is just really not concerned with worldly matters

00:51:02.740 apparently the friend developed a penchant for requesting gifts and personal effects from

00:51:09.140 members by saying the friend hath need of these things this is what celebrity does to you i guess

00:51:15.020 yeah um and then assigned degrading forms of punishment for various infractions of the society

00:51:21.280 rules so because earlier it had said that um the friend had very few personal possessions and stuff

00:51:27.640 it's like yeah but they had all these things that were other people's possessions that they

00:51:32.700 came to possess so people were becoming disillusioned not everybody but some people

00:51:39.800 so in the fall of 1799 some followers led attempts several attempts to arrest the friend for blasphemy

00:51:46.400 uh which was probably more to do with disagreements over land ownership and power and this is it's a

00:51:55.180 familiar situation i think where people have all the best intentions in the world or spiritual

00:52:02.640 intentions or something but once you get a bunch of people having to live day to day like you're

00:52:07.340 gonna get into some fights and some hurt feelings and things you can't just be like everyone love

00:52:13.780 each other like this kind of hippie commune eventually that's not going to work um an

00:52:20.780 officer tried to seize the friend while riding on the horse but the friend a skilled horse rider

00:52:26.020 escaped i like that moment that's in a movie that'll be a big scene oh yeah 0.90

00:52:33.420 not to mention uh an officer and assistant later tried to arrest the friend at home but the women

00:52:40.960 of the host drove the men off and tore their clothes another exciting sequence in the film

00:52:45.540 a third attempt was carefully planned by a posse of 30 men who surrounded the home after midnight

00:52:50.900 broke the door down with an axe and intended intended to carry the friend off in an ox cart

00:52:55.900 but a doctor who had come with the posse found that the friend was in too poor a state of health

00:53:01.500 to be moved so okay um they made a deal that the friend would appear before in ontario the

00:53:10.860 to ontario america um county court in june 1800 anyway eventually the friend appeared before the

00:53:19.040 court it ruled that no indictable offense had been committed and the judge in fact invited

00:53:23.780 the preacher to give a sermon to those in attendance so um like i it's like there's

00:53:32.080 some details in here you hadn't encountered before and i just kind of knew the vague outline

00:53:35.680 that this person existed but i didn't realize that there was all this drama yeah i so i knew

00:53:42.360 i knew about the mobs in philadelphia i didn't know about the repeated attempts to actually

00:53:47.820 enter their cult compound slash um you know society um and actually seize them um this

00:53:57.160 this detail was new to me and it's really striking the amount of planning and the amount of anger

00:54:05.100 of motivation that really has to go into that you know that's not just opportunistic oh this

00:54:10.040 person's down the road let's go and throw some stones because it'll be fun that's really people

00:54:14.360 sitting and plotting and thinking we need to get rid of this person and 30 of us are going to turn

00:54:18.560 it with pitchforks you know that's quite a lot but then i love the turn that found not guilty

00:54:25.940 and the judge is like and please i would love to hear you give one of your sermons like so there's

00:54:31.700 just as many fans as there are enemies seems like still so having set aside 12 000 acres of the

00:54:40.860 colony's property which again like to go back to something we talked at the very beginning is just

00:54:45.940 like these are white people quote-unquote buying land that belongs to the indigenous people of the

00:54:55.480 area. Like this is not just an open field that no one's ever lived on before. So as much as the

00:55:03.260 friend is like, everybody has their special light and spirit inside of them and all humans are

00:55:07.600 special. It's kind of like, yeah, but also 12,000 acres of this are going to be turned into my

00:55:12.760 personal use now. So, um, they had an estate built on the furthest corner of the property

00:55:19.680 and remained there in, quote, luxury.

00:55:22.860 I'm not sure how luxurious anyone's life was

00:55:25.900 in colonial America. 1.00

00:55:29.620 Although ailing with dropsy.

00:55:32.000 And so that's probably the same illness

00:55:33.620 where they were in too poor a state

00:55:35.340 to be put in the ox cart by the mob earlier.

00:55:38.620 And that's dropsy.

00:55:39.860 I've come across it a lot.

00:55:40.980 I think it basically just means kind of like a swelling.

00:55:42.900 I think it's like heart problems,

00:55:44.660 fluid retention, things like that.

00:55:46.660 So their health had been declining for quite a while.

00:55:49.680 But 1816, they began to suffer from a painful edema, but continued to receive visitors and

00:55:56.680 give sermons.

00:55:57.820 And this is similar to a while ago, I was doing John Knox.

00:56:02.940 I did a special episode about John Knox on my Patreon.

00:56:05.780 And he had a similar end where he was so ill, but he was so committed to preaching that

00:56:10.840 he would have people come into his room and he would be in bed and he would give his sermons.

00:56:15.280 And I feel like that's kind of what the friend is up to here.

00:56:17.440 Just being like, I can't stop preaching.

00:56:19.680 But the sermons will have to be in their bedroom and they'll be like lying in bed.

00:56:24.320 So the friend gave a final regular sermon in November 1818 and then preached for the last

00:56:29.160 time at the funeral of the sister, the one who had the child out of wedlock, Patience

00:56:33.500 Wilkinson Potter, in April 1819.

00:56:36.480 The friend died July 1st, which is interesting because July 4th is a very important date

00:56:41.440 to Americans.

00:56:43.140 July 1st, 1819.

00:56:45.220 The congregation's death book records 25 minutes past two on the clock.

00:56:49.080 the friend went from here so in accordance with the friend's wishes only a regular meeting and

00:56:54.320 no funeral service was held afterwards which is interesting considering how much of a celebrity

00:56:59.420 leader they were in their life they didn't want any celebration afterwards

00:57:04.080 suppose they derive part of their celebrity from like the claim that they're doing really

00:57:09.920 plain living so they've got a reputation to uphold oh that's true that's true yeah yeah

00:57:16.120 The body was placed in a coffin with a glass window set on top.

00:57:19.720 So I guess people could like view the body for a while.

00:57:22.440 Entered four days after death in a stone vault in the cellar of the friend's house.

00:57:27.100 Several years later, the coffin was removed and buried in an unmarked grave in accordance with the friend's preference.

00:57:33.440 Obituaries appeared in papers throughout the eastern United States because this was a famous person.

00:57:37.600 So people just wanted to hear the news that they had died.

00:57:41.620 um close followers remained faithful but kind of as the original followers died like the

00:57:47.920 congregation's numbers dwindled it was a cult of personality if not a cult cult like it was very

00:57:55.360 much based on people following this charismatic person but unlike jesus this did not continue

00:58:00.860 through past generations the society of universal friends disappeared by the late 1860s the friend's

00:58:08.480 home and temporary burial chamber stands in the town of Jerusalem, and it is included on the

00:58:12.940 National Register of Historic Places. The Yates County Genealogical and Historical Societies

00:58:18.400 Museum in Penyan, that might be a typo somewhere, exhibit the Friends portrait, Bible, carriage,

00:58:26.200 hat, saddle, and documents from the Society of Universal Friends. As late as the 1900s,

00:58:32.020 inhabitants of little rest road island called a species of solidago jemima weed because its

00:58:38.660 appearance in the town coincided with the preacher's first visit to the area in the 1770s

00:58:43.000 they don't call it friend weed or puf weed yeah i don't think they'd have been too pleased with

00:58:51.060 it being called jemima weed like that's the whole thing i'm trying to say not jemima no exactly i

00:58:57.520 picture them coming in and just like uprooting all the plants just being like oh no i'm not jemima

00:59:02.080 this plant's not jemima so and then this is where i think you can explain some of this

00:59:09.060 the the way that they have been presented by historians through following their life how

00:59:16.780 the story has been interpreted like the public universal friend very clearly was like i am

00:59:21.640 no gender i am the public universal friend that is who i am but then the story has been

00:59:27.860 reinterpreted yeah the friend has kind of fallen victim to a real classic of the way that trans

00:59:36.560 history has kind of flattened and erased when it um involves people assigned female at birth

00:59:42.040 which is the kind of desire to find inspiring and pioneering women in history who like transcended

00:59:48.500 gender boundaries which is great and like we should find and celebrate those people um but

00:59:53.840 if when we're looking for those people we find people who very clearly say actually i don't

01:00:01.380 identify as a woman then it doesn't make sense from a historical accuracy standpoint or from a

01:00:10.520 standpoint of looking for diverse stories in history and lots of different kinds of experience

01:00:15.000 it doesn't make sense um to just kind of erase that self-identification one of the things i guess

01:00:21.780 i'm really passionate about and i know i've talked to you a bit about this before is that

01:00:25.620 lots of different groups can find kind of identification and solidarity with the same

01:00:30.700 person so it's okay for women to feel you know solidarity and connection with the story with a

01:00:37.540 universal friend um just as trans people can but what i think is different about this case is that

01:00:45.000 This is someone really clearly and explicitly saying, I don't identify as having a gender.

01:00:50.540 And that's inextricable from their spiritual and religious beliefs.

01:00:55.400 It's not something that's just about gender, as is the case with pretty much everybody's gender.

01:01:00.360 It's also about other things. And in this case, it's about religion.

01:01:04.920 But that doesn't mean that women can't find kind of inspiration in their story.

01:01:10.740 but it does mean i think that representing them just as a woman who escaped gender boundaries

01:01:16.820 um is really misrepresenting who they actually were yeah like you said like in this case it's

01:01:22.980 so specific the friend described themselves like very clearly here's what's going on with me so

01:01:31.920 yeah this is this is part of where in last week's episode as well where i was talking

01:01:37.700 with Breda Lafleur about Debra Sampson slash Robert Shurtleff, who is a figure who I know

01:01:42.820 because I've heard from listeners, like women who find inspiration in that story of this

01:01:48.080 soldier.

01:01:49.060 And of course you can.

01:01:50.700 And like looking at it through the lens of trans history is not attempting to take that

01:01:55.060 away.

01:01:55.480 It's just saying like, and here's another way you can see the story.

01:01:57.760 And here's a way that other people can maybe find inspiration as well, because that's an

01:02:01.560 inspiring person.

01:02:03.120 Public Universal Friend, I don't know if that's an inspiring person.

01:02:05.740 um but it's an interesting person and I think what I'm learning about trans history as I go

01:02:14.320 through these episodes um and learning from you and from other scholars is just kind of

01:02:18.340 looking backwards at somebody lived their life in a certain way and then sometime in the 20th

01:02:23.820 century somebody came along to be like well actually this is what it is and here's how it's

01:02:28.700 actually a woman and here's why that's inspiring and then in kind of the 21st century someone

01:02:33.580 comes along to be like is it that like the way that each generation sort of reinterprets the

01:02:39.540 stories and so I try to as much as possible look back at like who was the person actually

01:02:44.620 not how were they reinterpreted or people again this story is so it's different in the sense that

01:02:52.040 the public universal friend very clearly said who they were so for people saying like here's what I

01:02:56.500 think was actually going on in their head it's like we know what was going on in this person's

01:03:01.120 actually because they made their whole life just telling the story of who they were and why they

01:03:06.460 were but this is the sort of reason why i love having you on the show and having other scholars

01:03:11.600 on the show because i i want to be able to describe this well for listeners who are maybe

01:03:18.600 new to trans history or new to this way of thinking about narratives yeah sure and i think

01:03:24.060 you know like i was saying it's really important to say that is none of this is about saying that

01:03:30.160 you can't understand this as a really inspiring piece of feminist history although as i say the

01:03:36.520 extent to which you might want to be inspired by this particular example is you know maybe up for

01:03:41.720 debate um but there's um you know even if we think about it as someone doing things that most people

01:03:48.040 assigned female at birth couldn't do there's no one saying that you can't find that important

01:03:51.980 but it's also i think equally important particularly in a climate where trans history is so often

01:03:58.220 erased and where the claim that trans people are new is being used politically and really

01:04:02.840 meaningful and harmful ways it is also important to say that what is going on here is an example

01:04:09.200 of people being able to understand the concept of a genderless person or a genderless spirit

01:04:14.740 in the 18th century and that's pretty cool yeah yeah exactly and as you said also and in a

01:04:23.060 christian religious context yeah yeah so that's i really appreciate being able to like the

01:04:30.920 scholarship that exists so i can have episodes like this talking about interesting people from

01:04:34.460 trans history on this podcast and on the podcast i do try to focus on weird stories or people who

01:04:41.620 are living sort of audacious scandalous lives which is exactly what this is so i don't i never 0.78

01:04:47.160 want anyone to feel like i'm taking away from women's history by talking about trans history 0.70

01:04:52.520 I think it's all it's all one thing it's just history of just one doesn't have to negate the

01:04:59.460 other basically absolutely yeah it can be women's history and trans history and it can be history

01:05:04.880 of gender not limiting us and gender not being something that we can't change and mold into

01:05:10.540 what we want it to be and that's liberating for everyone right and I think this story too just in

01:05:15.900 the context of trans history it's another interesting example of the trans history

01:05:20.720 comprises all kinds of different gender experiences including that of people who

01:05:26.500 die and are reborn as god incarnate in a genderless form exactly you know like in the acronym the

01:05:37.080 lgbtqia plus this is the plus yeah there's a lot under that plus and you know some of it is

01:05:44.660 resurrection yeah yeah exactly the plus contains a lot and so at the end of most of my episodes

01:05:52.500 although i forgot to do this last time i had you on the show i like to um score the people who talk

01:05:58.940 about in a variety of categories um just sort of as a way to wrap things up but also as a way to

01:06:03.100 sort of just compare people to each other and a way to um there's certain historical characteristics

01:06:08.800 that are celebrated in traditional conventional mainstream patriarchal history and on my show

01:06:14.600 I want to celebrate other things to, to give a really high score to people who may not on other

01:06:19.860 people's scales. And so if you would indulge me. So for public universal friend, we're going to

01:06:25.040 go through these four categories, which I have forewarned you about. And the first category is

01:06:30.740 scandalousness. In the context of this, it means how scandalous were they to the world in which

01:06:38.720 they lived? Because there's sometimes when you look at the history of, I don't know, let's say

01:06:43.500 like ancient rome which we're gonna look at later but that's a world where it's like oh did you kill

01:06:49.720 your father and then poison your grandmother and then marry your sister it's like okay that's just

01:06:55.120 kind of what we do so like to add that scandalous but in their era it wouldn't be so we're looking

01:07:00.480 at how scandalous was this person considering their time and place um and public universal friend

01:07:06.100 i mean as attested by the angry mobs i think was seen as pretty scandalous yeah you don't get

01:07:13.500 stones and brickbats thrown at you you don't get 30 people showing up at your house with an ox

01:07:18.020 cart if you're not pretty high on the scandaliciousness score i think yeah so on a scale

01:07:23.880 of zero to ten i'm just thinking so certainly the reaction that they had so the and part of it too

01:07:31.280 is not just did things happen to them that were scandalous but how much were they actively doing

01:07:36.260 things that people found scandalous and their whole deal like the whole like i'm gonna be a 0.96

01:07:42.700 quaker type person but i'm also going to be a celebrity which is so against like the quakers

01:07:47.560 i think would be like 10 out of 10 this person is horrific oh yeah and then to the quakers themselves 0.99

01:07:54.460 so i think it's a pretty high score and then in society in general like the whole the gender 1.00

01:07:58.960 presentation stuff i think people are kind of freaked out by that the people from other

01:08:03.100 denominations who were startled by the like does this person think they're jesus that is

01:08:07.960 i'm tempted to say 10 out of 10 for scandalousness honestly i was gonna go for 9 or 10 yeah i mean

01:08:14.560 like yeah like you say that you don't get much more scandalous than we are scared this person

01:08:19.740 literally thinks they're jesus in a pretty fundamentalist christian community yeah i mean

01:08:25.280 i don't even know the only thing that would be maybe more scandalous would be like this person

01:08:29.560 says they're satan but i don't know so let's say let's say 9.5 the next category is the scheminess

01:08:37.180 and in this show we that's a positive people with a scheme and a plan um how much are they sort of

01:08:44.900 like they see what's going on and they can kind of roll with the punches and move along with it

01:08:50.540 and this is interesting to me to think about because the public universal friend i don't know

01:08:55.620 how much they had a scheme and a plan and how much they were just kind of like just vibing just yeah

01:09:03.200 you said vibing earlier didn't you i mean on like if you if you take the conspiracy theory route of

01:09:09.000 like all of this is a scheme be reborn as a genderless person gain incredible celebrity

01:09:15.880 be able to demand any gifts you want by saying the friend has need of these things if you see

01:09:21.040 that as like an actual plan that's incredibly schemey i'm not sure it was an actual plan i

01:09:26.600 think this person was just kind of going with the flow a bit so i would maybe go lower on that

01:09:33.200 But if we decide that everything was actually planned, then it would be much higher.

01:09:39.380 I don't think it was actually planned.

01:09:42.100 My interpretation of this just seems like eventually they did get followers and, you know, a beautiful house and anything from anybody that they wanted.

01:09:50.320 But I think if it had been a real grift scheme, there would have been more like money making stuff going on.

01:09:56.400 and there wasn't really like it's just kind of the followers came and then that brought with a

01:10:01.180 drama about property taxes and whatever but i think the friend was just kind of like here's

01:10:05.180 what i want to do be a preacher so i feel like the scheminess is is low but that's part of what

01:10:12.180 makes it interesting because like they cause so much chaos without really scheming just yeah

01:10:18.980 without really meaning to and like you know there was i think there was some opportunism and

01:10:24.760 materialism behind it but there was also like some sincere religious belief that they genuinely had

01:10:30.260 been reborn and had a vision of god and things so yeah i'd go i'd go maybe like three or four there

01:10:36.320 i think i'm gonna say four um because i do want to especially part i'm gonna go up from a three

01:10:44.040 two or four because of that part where they republish that other person's book yes

01:10:48.640 the plagiarism well i just thought more people would read it if it had my name on it

01:10:55.280 okay so significance and this can be there's this story has a lot of resonances so there's

01:11:03.380 stuff like in terms of just american history significance um like the first american to

01:11:08.180 found a religious order the but then there's also stuff like significance to trans history

01:11:13.340 the significance to religious history

01:11:15.980 and where that would be on a scale of zero to 10.

01:11:18.640 Although I do want to mention,

01:11:19.940 I don't know if this is a little fact,

01:11:20.780 but I did find out it was not a typo in my thing.

01:11:23.580 The place where those, the saddle and things are

01:11:26.260 is actually in a place called Penn Yan.

01:11:30.320 That is apparently in Yates County in Pennsylvania.

01:11:37.020 Truly, it looked like a typo,

01:11:38.560 but that is the name of the place.

01:11:40.700 Who knew?

01:11:41.160 um yeah to have like a museum exhibit dedicated to you i think to be like this is their saddle

01:11:49.240 this is their carriage i'm like well that's that speaks to significance it's a big deal and i think

01:11:53.960 a lot they're really important to lots of trans people today the idea that someone in the 18th

01:11:57.880 century was confidently declaring that they had no gender um that's a big deal um and i think has

01:12:03.660 like a lot of political resonance today as well so i'd go pretty high there i'm happy to go with

01:12:09.840 a 10 for significance because i think everything you said and i mean and i'll say it again but

01:12:15.060 just the fact that they were confidently being like i i am a gender and the followers were like

01:12:20.980 that's great and 300 of them were like we believe that and let's start a commune with you like

01:12:26.980 in 1776 it's like okay okay that many hundreds of years ago people were cool with it so like

01:12:34.060 pay attention let's do it let's go let's go ted i think so and then the fourth category which

01:12:41.440 when i started this show and i made this scale and i can't change the scale because i invented

01:12:46.620 it four years ago i was doing just the stories of like cis women so this it was a straightforward

01:12:53.760 thing to be like how much sexism affect their life but then when i'm getting into stories about

01:12:58.020 not just like trans figures from history, but also sometimes I'm looking at like a black enslaved

01:13:04.680 woman where it's like, well, sexism was kind of one of many things that was affecting this person.

01:13:09.760 But for this, the sexism bonus, this is the reason I invented that category was for somebody who, 0.98

01:13:17.440 some, you know, queen from English history who was shut away in a castle because she

01:13:22.300 dared to speak up. And then she, you know, was trapped there for 35 years and died.

01:13:27.480 she would get a 10 out of 10 sexism bonus because that's a person who probably wouldn't get scores

01:13:32.240 in any other category i don't want everyone to get something but for this story i don't feel

01:13:38.800 like sexism got in their way at all i mean they kind of sidestepped the whole sexism thing by

01:13:45.280 being like well i don't have one um which means that you know despite being assigned female at

01:13:51.500 birth actually sexism didn't affect them at all they avoided the fate of their mom dying in

01:13:56.180 childbirth with her 12th child which is a huge deal yeah i don't think sexism held them back

01:14:01.320 very much at all no i don't think so which is i mean astonishing given what was happening to

01:14:08.440 to their mom and to the sister who was you know excommunicated for having a childhood of marriage

01:14:12.920 um but yeah and there's been other people on the show where it's just there's some people who it

01:14:17.940 kind of worked to their advantage you know so it's not always everyone's not gonna always get

01:14:21.760 a high score. I'm going to say, I'm going to give them a one for sexism bonus because I'm sure it

01:14:28.740 affected them somehow because of the era in which they lived. And I don't know if it had been,

01:14:35.540 if the friend had been assigned male at birth, died, came back and was like, I am a genderless

01:14:40.640 person. The way that they were treated to some extent was because they had lived the first part

01:14:46.560 their life as a woman like a man doing many of these things may not have been as controversial

01:14:52.880 yeah maybe although then they would have probably have experienced misogyny if they'd had to dress

01:14:57.620 in a feminine way to kind of emphasize their genderlessness um but equally they wouldn't 0.99

01:15:03.280 have been treated as the one of the reasons the public universal friends dress was controversial

01:15:07.200 is like you're trying to ascend the social hierarchy from woman to something better than

01:15:13.900 woman and that was the whole problem so yeah i think one is fair yeah this is so i'm just gonna

01:15:20.460 officially put them here in my scale of people public universal friend 24.5 is their score out

01:15:29.520 of 40 and just to give you some context for what that means and who else is in that neighborhood

01:15:35.440 um a name that you probably would know is catalina de arousso oh hey the other figure from trans

01:15:43.220 says do who has a 23.5 so their neighbors next door neighbors are on the list just one point

01:15:49.480 separating i think they'd get on i think they would get on and i would not want to be in that

01:15:55.380 dinner party i think they were both big personalities and also quite insufferable

01:16:02.640 so that's lovely thank you so much so i wanted to just follow up or just to ask you um this is 0.90

01:16:11.880 episode is coming out during June, which is Pride Month. Is it Pride Month in the UK? I know you

01:16:17.500 have different celebratory months there. We do, but Pride Month is the same, yeah.

01:16:22.280 Oh yeah, so Pride Month, it's June in Canada and in the US. Is there any

01:16:27.300 charity or fundraiser or website or anything you want to especially give a shout out to

01:16:33.640 at this time? Oh, thank you. I would actually love to shout out the organization Transactual

01:16:40.720 in the uk who do really important work and combating um the incredible misinformation

01:16:46.000 around trans rights particularly trans health care and trans kids at the moment

01:16:49.060 so if people want to check out their work and consider donating that would be fantastic

01:16:54.000 that's lovely and i'll put a link to that in the show notes as well and then if people want to keep

01:16:59.980 up with you online and you have a website and instagram is there anything any where specifically

01:17:06.940 would people be able to to follow you would you suggest so i'm on instagram at kithay and writer

01:17:11.880 um i am still on twitter for my sins and that's at kr him um but instagram's probably the network

01:17:19.280 that's not gonna crash and burn in the next few months so go with that yeah i that's always when

01:17:25.160 i record things a couple weeks ahead i'm just like where are you and what website will still

01:17:29.720 be functioning two weeks from now but thank you so much kit and i do want to mention to the listeners

01:17:35.220 So the last time Kit was on this podcast, we were talking about Elagabalus, the trans

01:17:40.260 Roman, the horndog teenage emperor, who was up there for five minutes.

01:17:45.940 And I neglected to get Kit to help me with the scoring.

01:17:49.740 So we are going to record this afterwards.

01:17:52.700 And I'm going to make that recording available on Patreon.

01:17:56.280 And then also I'm going to go back and edit it back into the Elagabalus episode.

01:17:59.720 So if Kit, if you have five more minutes to spare, we'll record that next.

01:18:03.200 Great.

01:18:03.540 Let's do it.

01:18:05.220 so because this is our 18th century slash marie antoinette season how do you solve a problem

01:18:16.520 like marie antoinette everyone who are talking about this series i'm going to show you how they

01:18:20.960 connect back to marie antoinette and actually i did have a suggestion from a listener um because

01:18:26.320 i am trying to figure what would be some good merch ideas for this series and what and their

01:18:31.920 suggestion was the whole six degrees of Marie Antoinette. And so now I'm picturing sort of like

01:18:36.580 one of those conspiracy boards, you know, like where all the names are attached by red

01:18:40.900 string. And maybe there's a little portrait of the person just showing how everyone connects

01:18:44.160 back to Marie Antoinette. Public Universal Friend does as well. So the closest connection I could

01:18:49.100 find. So Public Universal Friend's father's cousin, Stephen Hopkins was one of the many people who

01:18:56.140 signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Declaration of Independence was also signed by

01:19:01.520 various American founding fathers who would later become friends with the Marquis de Lafayette.

01:19:07.520 Marquis de Lafayette, again, I can't not picture him as Debbie Diggs from Hamilton. Marquis de

01:19:14.800 Lafayette was frenemies or frankly enemies with Marie Antoinette. They knew and hated each other.

01:19:20.880 So if we go from public universal friend to their father, to their father's cousin,

01:19:24.680 to the founding fathers, to Lafayette, to Marie Antoinette, that is five degrees

01:19:29.460 a separation between these two people for the record um and again i do want to just really

01:19:34.540 extra shout out kit's book before we were trans a new history of gender it's described as a

01:19:40.800 groundbreaking global history of gender non-conformity kit talks about other people

01:19:45.040 who we've discussed on this podcast um like njinga for instance of angola so it's a great book to

01:19:52.580 read comma and also to to celebrate pride i put together a playlist of 27 episodes of vulgar

01:20:01.680 history which deal with queer history and that's people from all of the lgbtqia plus spectrum like

01:20:09.500 we said in this episode public universal friend is very much plus in terms of that acronym but

01:20:15.200 we talk about people like njinga who is pansexual um and maybe also a part of trans history oh for

01:20:22.000 sure part of trans history um we also have episodes about people like um christina of

01:20:28.220 sweden who was potentially intersex but also certainly a queer history story um hortense

01:20:35.620 mancini who was bisexual i was just going through all the episodes we've done about different people

01:20:41.180 on this podcast who fall under that umbrella um empress cc i included on this playlist because

01:20:46.040 there's a reading that she could have been demisexual or maybe asexual so all these you

01:20:50.200 know queer history is a huge umbrella and all the people that we talk about on this podcast are just 0.68

01:20:54.680 various stages of just like messy chaos people and so just celebrating um gay villains queer and

01:21:03.940 trans weirdos i anyway the whole playlist the the link to it is in the show notes i just put it

01:21:10.220 together on spotify 31 hours of vulgar history episodes including some author interviews 0.64

01:21:15.120 just celebrating queer history. I'm happy that of the however many episodes I've done of Vulgar 0.91

01:21:21.600 History 27 have had queer themes and I hope will now more do because this episode it's Pride Month

01:21:27.640 and I just want to do that together as a as my little way of celebrating queer history. So this

01:21:34.540 is the Vulgar History Podcast. My name is Anne Foster and you can keep up with me in all kinds

01:21:42.520 of various ways. So for starters, we are on Instagram at vulgarhistorypod. And then also,

01:21:49.160 if you want to keep up with us, we're on, I have a substack, which is vulgarhistory.substack.com.

01:21:54.920 And that's, if you want to subscribe there, I have a weekly newsletter. At the moment,

01:21:59.340 the newsletter is talking about Tudor history. So it's not exactly the same stuff we're talking

01:22:04.360 about on the podcast, but there's, so I call it, it's like a sister. It's like a cousin of this

01:22:09.260 podcast. It's like a father's cousin who signed the Declaration of Independence. Some connection,

01:22:14.360 but it's not exactly the same thing. You can also support the podcast on Patreon at patreon.com

01:22:19.220 slash Anne Foster Writer. So I'm doing more on Patreon just because Instagram is got some weird

01:22:26.540 things happening with the algorithm. It's doing some weird stuff with AI. I'm also posting

01:22:31.020 Instagram as well, but I know not everyone is on there and not everyone loves it. So I'm sharing

01:22:34.800 more content on Patreon, which you can join for free. And you'll just get like a little

01:22:39.140 notification whenever I post something new. They're like a picture or a question or a poll.

01:22:43.440 So everyone's welcome to become a free member of the Patreon. Or if you want to become a paid

01:22:48.160 member of the Patreon, you get some goodies, like not literal physical goodies. But if you pledge

01:22:55.040 at least $1 or more a month, you get early ad-free access to all episodes of Vulgar History.

01:23:00.500 And if you pledge $5 or more a month, you get access to bonus episodes. So those are things

01:23:05.000 like Vulgar Peace Theater, where I talk about costume dramas with unofficial co-hosts,

01:23:09.780 Alison Epstein and Lana Wood Johnson. Also things like the after show, for instance,

01:23:14.160 the recording that Kit and I did after this, where we scored Elagabalus, that's there

01:23:17.740 on the after show. Anyway, there's also episodes of So This Asshole, where I talk about gross man 0.94

01:23:22.520 from history. That's what's happening on Patreon. That's a place where I'm putting more content. 0.91

01:23:28.420 So if you want to join me there, either as a free or paid member, we have a nice time.

01:23:32.260 there's also chats there so for all the paid members there's a weekly episode chat where you

01:23:37.680 can talk about it um for people at the five dollars or more level there's the super secret

01:23:41.620 salon we have on discord where we just kind of like whatever we're sharing pictures of our pets

01:23:47.460 we're just chatting i'm letting you know there's like a spoilers thread where i'm kind of giving

01:23:51.780 hints about what i'm up to because you know i'm writing a book and i have i'm sharing things there

01:23:57.720 about that and we also have our beloved brand partner common ear jewelry so common ear jewelry

01:24:05.460 i want to say first of all it's a small business it's a woman-owned business and they make beautiful

01:24:11.980 jewelry pieces and also things like scrunchies and hair bows inspired by women from classical

01:24:17.000 mythology as well as from history and so in terms of pride months there is a sappho themed necklace

01:24:22.760 for all my sapphics. There's also Hatshepsut, who is another person we've done an episode about

01:24:27.980 that's included on my Pride podcast playlist because Hatshepsut is a part of trans history

01:24:33.580 because trans history is a history of people and gender expressions, not specifically just

01:24:38.800 about people who themselves are trans people, which Hatshepsut lived so long ago. Who's to say?

01:24:44.540 Anyway, Hatshepsut, an iconic person. And you can get a necklace with Hatshepsut on it from

01:24:48.960 common ear jewelry, as well as Sappho, other iconic women, Boudicca, Cleopatra, Hecate,

01:24:56.620 Agrippina. There's also Anne Boleyn, um, Aphrodite, Medusa. Anyway, they have, I love

01:25:04.300 their pieces. I, they're my brand partner because I love them. And legitimately I have like three of

01:25:10.340 their necklaces. Anyway, if you want to get a discount, um, you can go to common ear.com

01:25:17.500 slash vulgar or when you're checking out use vulgar at checkout to get 15% off whatever you're

01:25:23.400 ordering from common ear jewelry if you want to get some vulgar history merch you can get that

01:25:28.560 at vulgarhistory.com slash store in terms of pride month I'm just thinking about what which 0.86

01:25:34.380 of the queer figures we have on merchandise Hortense Mancini we have a beautiful design with

01:25:39.340 her we also have a design for featuring the chevalier day on the iconic trans women from

01:25:47.740 french history and anyway you can take a look at the store vulgar history.com slash store that

01:25:54.140 takes you to our t public store and that's got good shipping for americans if you're outside the

01:25:58.900 u.s i recommend using the red bubble shop which is at vulgar history.redbubble.com both places

01:26:03.720 have all the same stuff t-shirts pins stickers like represent vulgar history with increasingly

01:26:09.940 niche inside jokes that no one else will understand but imagine if you were out there

01:26:15.220 and you had your vulgar history sticker on your phone case or whatever and somebody sees

01:26:19.520 your sticker that has you know like where is your god now john nox you could make a little friend 0.96

01:26:24.820 someone else from the tits out brigade which is what our listeners are called

01:26:28.040 you can get in touch with me we have a form at vulgarhistory.com where you can just like send

01:26:33.980 me your message your thoughts your suggestions of people you want us to talk about on the podcast

01:26:37.420 your thoughts about public universal friend do have you been to the museum where you can see

01:26:42.960 public universal friends saddle and like carriage and other things like let me know because that's

01:26:49.520 i would love to see those things and next week we're going to be sticking with american history

01:26:56.740 a bit longer. It's going to be me doing a solo episode and I'm going to be talking about a woman

01:27:02.880 from American history who, when I did a survey a bit ago of American listeners, of just people

01:27:09.140 who I was thinking about doing episodes about, this is the second best known woman from American

01:27:14.800 history. Something like 80% of the people who did the survey had heard this woman. It's a fairly

01:27:19.260 famous woman from American history, from 18th century American history. Marquita Lafayette

01:27:24.780 is going to be involved again.

01:27:27.360 The Marquita Lafayette is in so many stories.

01:27:29.720 I feel like I'm inevitably going to need

01:27:31.660 to do an episode about him

01:27:33.380 because I think he was kind of a chaos person as well.

01:27:36.060 Anyway, thank you so much for listening.

01:27:37.660 Happy Pride Month.

01:27:38.860 And until next time, 1.00

01:27:39.700 keep your pants on and your tits out. 1.00

01:27:42.720 Vulgar History is researched, 1.00

01:27:44.500 written, and hosted by Anne Foster. 0.97

01:27:46.520 That's me.

01:27:47.080 The editor is Christina Lumagi.

01:27:49.860 Theme music is by The Severn Duo.

01:27:52.540 The Vulgar History Show image

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01:29:05.660 Goodbye, Kyle!

01:29:07.260 Did the sound of those words call to you like Pavlov's dog?

01:29:10.340 Then you might enjoy our podcast Turtle Time.

01:29:12.980 Every week you can join me, Riley Hamilton, and my co-host Amy Scarlatta

01:29:17.260 as we cover the most pressing Bravo news

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01:29:23.220 who the hell is Adrienne Maloof in this world?

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01:29:29.000 or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Vulgar History - June 12, 2024

American Revolution, part 2： The Trans Quaker Guru

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