Who (or even what) is a woman and who gets to say? What are women supposed to do in society? How should we as individuals and as a society relate to sex? We’re asking many of the same questions folks in Fanny’s day asked about the nature of womanhood, femininity, sexuality, and mothering. Our answers may differ, but one thing’s clear: Motherhood (or cat-loving lack thereof) and sexuality are still messing with us in America and are still prone to become political footballs.
In this episode, we explore what Frances Wright may have experienced as she went from public intellectual and firebrand to wife and mother. We consider why she may have made the choices she did, how she felt, and how those feelings squared with her radical ideas regarding marriage. These issues had a huge impact on Fanny’s life–her life changed dramatically when she became pregnant–but Fanny’s response to these issues also made the longest-lasting and biggest impacts of her career and inspired the first wave of feminists.
Our expert guests this week are historians Rachel Hope Cleves of the University of Vancouver, who gives us context on changing American ideas of gender, sex, and marriage; and Shannon Withycombe, a medical historian at the University of New Mexico who studies the evolution of American popular and clinical ideas of prenatal care, pregnancy, and childbirth.
Want to go deeper? Find shownotes with links to resources and rabbit holes here on our substack site. There’s even more to read on our Bookshop.org lists here!
Frances Wright: America’s Forgotten Radical is a co-production of Newyear Media and Her Reputation for Accomplishment, written and hosted by Eleanor Rust and Tristra Yeager. Made possible by a grant from the Working Men's Institute, New Harmony, Indiana, and by the generosity of the Efroymson Family Fund. Thanks also to the Bloomington Area Arts Council for supporting this podcast.
Frances Wright is voiced by Emily McGee. Music by Eleanor Dubinsky. Editing and audio support by Josh Perez.