Virginia Scharff, “The Women Jefferson Loved” (HarperCollins, 2010)

Virginia Scharff, “The Women Jefferson Loved” (HarperCollins, 2010)

Most Americans could tell you who George Washington’s wife was. (Martha, right?) Most Americans probably couldn’t tell you who Thomas Jefferson’s wife was. (It was also Martha, but a different one of course). They might be able to tell you, however, who Thomas Jefferson’s alleged concubine was, as she has been in the news a lot lately. (His slave, Sally Hemings). But actually there were a lot of women in Jefferson’s life–or should we say a lot of women had Jefferson in their lives. Virginia Scharff tells us about the most important of them (including Martha and Sally) in her literary-yet-historical new book The Women Jefferson Loved (HarperCollins, 2010). The “Jefferson Women,” if it may be allowed, were an interesting bunch. They were sturdy, intelligent, and sometimes rich. Jefferson did love them, but he didn’t really think they were the equals of men. He was hardly alone in this opinion. Even children of the Enlightenment like Jefferson felt God had made women for a distinctly womenly role, and Jefferson felt it was his duty to make sure they played it. Suffice it to say that they were pregnant a lot and became very good at managing domestic life on a plantation. That, of course, is nothing to discount, for in so doing they created the domestic and emotional context within which Jefferson lived. They were an important part of his world, and he of theirs. Thanks to Virginia for bringing this world alive for us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(1860)

Meena Khandelwal, "Cookstove Chronicles: Social Life of a Women's Technology in India" (U Arizona Press, 2026)

Meena Khandelwal, "Cookstove Chronicles: Social Life of a Women's Technology in India" (U Arizona Press, 2026)

Stove improvers have been designing and promoting “clean” or “efficient” biomass cookstoves in India since the 1940s and have been frustrated to find their carefully engineered stoves abandoned in ...

8 Heinä 1h 1min

Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" (UNC Press, 2025)

Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" (UNC Press, 2025)

What was it like to live in a city experiencing occupation by a foreign army? What did it mean when a family had to quarter an officer in their home? More specifically, how did military occupation aff...

6 Heinä 45min

Rachel Silveri, "The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

Rachel Silveri, "The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

With The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism (University of Chicago Press, 2026), Rachel Silveri takes a fresh look at the desire to unify...

4 Heinä 58min

Rosa Campbell, "The Book That Taught the World to Orgasm and Then Disappeared: Shere Hite and the Hite Report" (Melville House, 2026)

Rosa Campbell, "The Book That Taught the World to Orgasm and Then Disappeared: Shere Hite and the Hite Report" (Melville House, 2026)

Despite being one of the leading thinkers of the second wave feminist movement, today Shere Hite is little known, little written about, and, unsurprisingly, little read. Her groundbreaking book, The H...

2 Heinä 40min

Nancy Micklewright, "Fashion in Late Ottoman Istanbul: Photography and Identity in a Global City" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Nancy Micklewright, "Fashion in Late Ottoman Istanbul: Photography and Identity in a Global City" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Over the 19th century, the women of Istanbul gradually transformed their appearance, adopting European dress and new modes of self-fashioning, including photographs. Fashion in Late Ottoman Istanbul: ...

30 Kesä 49min

Chiara Formichi, "Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia" (Stanford UP, 2025)

Chiara Formichi, "Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia" (Stanford UP, 2025)

In her most recent publication, Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia (Stanford UP, 2025), Chiara Formichi argues that Muslim women in Java and Sumatra, from the late ...

30 Kesä 1h 12min

Robin Dembroff, "Real Men on Top: How Patriarchy Shapes Our Reality" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Robin Dembroff, "Real Men on Top: How Patriarchy Shapes Our Reality" (Oxford UP, 2026)

In Real Men on Top: How Patriarchy Shapes Our Reality (Oxford University Press, 2026), Robin Dembroff shows us that we don't just live in a patriarchal world. We live in a world that patriarchy taugh...

22 Kesä 0s

Stephanie Coontz, "For Better and Worse: The Complicated Past and Challenging Future of Marriage" (Viking, 2026)

Stephanie Coontz, "For Better and Worse: The Complicated Past and Challenging Future of Marriage" (Viking, 2026)

Marriage rates have fallen dramatically since the 1970s. Yet far from devaluing marriage, people still overwhelmingly describe marriage as the highest commitment they can imagine. Most Americans s...

14 Kesä 46min

Suosittua kategoriassa Tiede

rss-mita-tulisi-tietaa
utelias-mieli
filocast-filosofian-perusteet
rss-tiedetta-vai-tarinaa
docemilia
rss-ammamafia
tiedekulma-podcast
hippokrateen-vastaanotolla
ihanat-ipanat
rss-bios-podcast
rss-vaasan-yliopiston-podcastit
rss-duodecim-lehti