Significant Others - Sarah Vowell on Peggy Shippen & Revolutionary America

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Author Sarah Vowell on the particular struggles women faced in revolutionary America and how Peggy Shippen’s environment influenced her decisions.Sarah’s books can be found here.

Welcome to Significant Others. I'm Liza Powell O'Brien, and in yesterday's episode, we heard the story of Peggy Shippen, who as a young wife and mother was instrumental in turning her husband, Benedict Arnold, against his country. Today, we're going to talk a little bit more about women and the American Revolution. And joining me to do that is the hilarious and brilliant author, Sarah Vowell. Sarah, what a pleasure and a treat to get to talk to you today. Thank you so much for doing this. Sure thing, Liza. So this episode is a follow-up to our Peggy Shippen episode, which aired yesterday. And Peggy, of course, is the wife of trader Benedict Arnold. And she factored into his trajectory to a degree that I was completely unaware of. And I thought it would be great to talk to you, just because it's great to talk to you, but also

because this, you know, when I'm ingesting the story of Peggy Shippen and sort of how she went from being what one can imagine as a fairly typical teenage girl who liked parties and dances and boys and, you know, loved her dad, but also sort of, you know, had problems with him that maybe she wasn't quite reconciling at the time. I cannot identify with that at all. you know, had problems with him that maybe she wasn't quite reconciling at the time. And then she- Oh yeah, I cannot identify with that at all. And she becomes this force of, you know, depending on what side of the revolution you sit on, kind of a force for evil in a way, in the service of trying to help her husband get what she thought was kind of the best deal. And I assume that she thought she was also doing what was best for her country, quote unquote, although it wouldn't have actually been so much a country if she'd gotten her way. Yeah. Well, that maybe wasn't totally her priority. But when you say, like, which side you're on, even that, I mean, just thinking about it in terms of geometry, like, the simplistic version of that war is it's two parallel lines.

It's these two sides squaring off, right? But when you get into it, it's more, I think, of kind of this like blobby polygon where, you know, like even I mean, her family, they were kind of they were in Philadelphia. Right. So they were sort of neutral, which a lot of people were just kind of a lot of people were just trying to get by and waiting to see, like, how's this going to shake out? And even in Philadelphia, like, you know, loads of Quakers, even something as seemingly homogenous as the as, you know, Quaker society had all of these factions. They I mean, they're like, you know, inherently anti-war. But then you have the ones that were inherently anti-war, but then you have the ones that were anti-war, totally neutral. The ones who were anti-war kind of lean toward the patriots. The ones who were loyalist, but anti-war. And then you have the complete contradiction of the fighting Quakers, like General Nathaniel Green, who goes against all of those principles to become one of Washington's favorite generals. So even the Quakers can't agree.

And then even the Army and the Congress are always at odds. And pretty much the whole war, the congress is always about to fire george washington you know who's the like indispensable man to the whole enterprise so i mean i just think it's it's so in keeping with who we are as a people just because it's all like squabbling, bickering, you know, they, that's just on the patriot side, you know. So like, I mean, once they, sometimes they fight the British, but mostly they're kind of bickering with each other. So. When you say, when you say it reflects or it's true to who we are as a people, do you think that's not just people, period? Are there, are there a people who are better than we are as a people do you think that's not just people period are there are there eight people who are better i mean there are some cultures that are a little more homogenous and united like i don't know much about denmark but the danes seem pretty tight you know whereas like to me one of the you know the uh most kind of significant moments of the founding

the like basically in the first few minutes of the first continental congress somebody says oh we should open with a prayer and the second thing that happens is someone stands up and says no i'm not praying with these other guys because they're like congregationalists and Quakers and, you know, Church of England, Episcopalians, I mean. And so and like, you know, Sam Adams stands up and says, well, I'm not a bigot and I'll hear a prayer from anybody. But like at that moment, they're a bunch of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males. And even they can't get along enough to say a prayer together. And those seeds are still being reaped today. We are them. Yeah.

Right. And it's also, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, one of the things, the deciding factor in the war, in my opinion, is the French come to our aid. But that didn't go well at first either. And the French, there was this storm and their ship broke and they kind of left when they were supposed to help liberate Rhode Island. And like Massachusetts was really mad at the French and Lafayette writes this letter to Washington, you know, like, why everybody's being so mean about the French? And Washington writes back like, that's what we're doing here. We're,

like, building this new place where people are going to, you know, fight and bicker and disagree, and they're going to, you know, say things without thinking. And that's who we are. That's our purpose is this kind of, you know, mess they're building. So the fact that this teenage girl isn't necessarily on one side or the other, it isn't just her, you know. No. And in fact, she has a brother who, you know, their father is this kind of remarkable coward, which I'm not saying with in a pejorative way, because I completely sympathize with his plight. You know, he's, he's there saying, like, I just want to survive this thing. And I'm not sure which way it's going to go. And he was kind of a loyalist, but he didn't want to get in trouble. And his son runs off and starts fighting with the loyalists. And he's super pissed because he's going to like blow up the whole family, basically. And so she, even just in her own family, is wrestling with, okay, which quote-unquote side. And then her husband is this really fascinating portrait of a person who is, you know, deeply allegiant to one, you know, group, sort of. Like, he loves Washington. He's devoted to Washington. He's completely anti-British rule. He's one of the first people to start fighting,

you know, on behalf of the colonies. And yet he's- Super brave. He was very brave. The antithesis of the father in a way. And then he is also very allegiant to his own pride and his- Oh my God. Right? I mean, you could do just the whole history of the world based on the delicacy of the male ego. I mean, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, you know? Do that now. I mean, like, that's one reason Washington sticks with it.

It's his ego, you know? He's, I mean, he has so much perseverance and stamina, but he wants to win. One reason the Marquis de Lafayette comes over to volunteer is he wants glory, like any 19-year-old boy. And that doesn't sound so good, but then it made him brave. It made him helpful. He wanted to fight, you know, just as like Washington's soldiers

are abandoning the cause all the time. Lafayette is just always like gung-ho to get in there and fight because of his ego. So it can be useful. But for Arnold, yeah. I mean, who doesn't identify with that really? The idea of these people don't appreciate me. Also, they owed him money. Congress refused to pay him. He had lost almost a leg and plenty of money. He had been paying his own trip. I mean, he was actually a

really, really great general. Yeah. Your point about male ego, I think, is a great segue into discussing the condition and limitations of women in a time where there wasn't really any opportunity to do much of anything outside of a domestic role and so we see to me that was the like it depends on when you think the war starts you think the war starts in 75 then it's just war as we think of war. But if you think of it as starting in 1765 with the Stamp Act and all of that,

there is like 10 years of resistance before the shots are fired. And that is, I think, led by the women because they're the ones who have to survive with all these boycotts. You know, like, I mean, one of the things we remember, like the most famous is the Boston Tea Party because they don't want to pay for the tea tax.

So those guys just throw the tea in the harbor. But if you really think about what they were doing, boycotting the tea, I mean, their lives were just so miserable anyway and these women and now they they have to um there are these stories about after they started boycotting tea they would just boil basil leaves i mean you're a mom can you imagine like raising your kids without caffeine like they're just doing all this and then they also part of it was um boycotting british um fabric because that was a huge industry

in britain and so they're um all the women start boycotting luxury goods and that includes you know uh fabric and so they start start making their own fabric, which becomes the homespun movement. And I thought that was interesting. And I read your script about Peggy. And one thing I had never thought about with the, you know, one of the great embarrassments, or there were several great embarrassments for the revolution. One was losing New York City. That was Washington's biggest embarrassment. Losing New York City to the British and then losing Philadelphia, the capital. And I had never thought of it as fun, you know? To be a teenager in revolutionary. Yeah, sure. A teenager because these British guys

show up and they have stuff and they're throwing parties and balls and, you know, they have money, they have money, they have goods. And then they're also like, listen, London is actually a great town. Let's do more of that here. Whereas had been, you know, Quaker rule, it had been this race of the insipids, as John Adams called them. And then her friendship with John Andre and that ball he throws, and it's all about the fabrics, right? It's like they're wearing turbans. Yep. Many different types of fabrics, lots of draping. And he was very interested in describing it all, which it's kind of I mean, I'm just impressed that anyone had the bring to you about the role of textiles. Okay. So these women are making, they start making their own fabric.

They're like spinning their wool. They're like sewing the clothes. And this is beginning around 65, 1765? Yeah. And especially it like cranks up again in 1774 there's like the intolerable acts and they start like really seriously boycotting stuff and john adams sends this letter to abigail like this is the mindset now imagine you're a teenage girl and how you would feel about this he says to abigail i hope the ladies are every day diminishing their ornaments and the gentlemen

too let us eat potatoes and drink water let us wear canvas and undressed sheepskins rather than submit to the unrighteous and ignominious domination that is prepared for us so like so much of that all that like resistance before the war is about austerity, you know, and like we're like we don't need the finer things. And there is something about like homespun to me. It's not just this movement. It's not just the cloth. It's almost this metaphor for our idea of America, you know? It's like, I call it opry versus opera, you know?

Like, this idea of these, like, I mean, if you forget the fact that an autocratic king of France was the one who bankrolled our victory. Sure. You just put that aside. Sure. It's just these scrappy farmers you know who are like like the french keep commenting the word they keep using again and again to describe the american

soldiers is naked nearly naked i mean they are just so poor and they're just so like you know unraveled literally i mean and then when the french show up, like the the Americans are so in awe of these like French dandies with their like pink collars and their satin. And like there was this one kid who was a messenger and they think, well, that guy must be the general because he's all gussied up, you know. And then and they think this guy, every time he goes over to the actual general, he's giving him orders because Because, like, of course the guy who's the fanciest looking is in charge, you know. So, like, the fabric is kind of almost the analogy for, like, the American cause during the whole war and before. And so then, like, if you were, like, I never thought about it before but like um there's this like when benjamin franklin when he goes over to um uh when he goes over to france you know to start like trying to get the french government uh to help us uh his daughter writes to him and she's like can you send me some french linen and

lace like whoa you know he writes back and he he said that he got this message and he is this disgusted me as much as if you had put salt into my strawberries the spinning i see is laid aside and you are to be dressed for the ball oh my and so like she's in philadelphia you know with your friend uh with your friend Peggy. Sure. And so, like, this idea of the ball. That's right. And you're wearing lace to a ball.

This is a moral outrage to these, you know, patriots. Do you feel a little like John Adams might have preferred austerity measures always anyway? Yes. He was from Massachusetts. He was, you know know a puritan descendant like yeah i mean that part of it is is really at the core of a lot of these people you know and it really did like i mean luckily they most of them weren't interested in the finer things. But I mean, except for Jefferson, who was a total shopaholic, you know, but there's something I hadn't really thought about until like you asked me to think

about Peggy and that time in Philadelphia, which I just thought is like, you know, the occupation. Yuck. I mean, you think of I think of that in terms of World War Two, you know, occupation yuck i mean you think of i think of that in terms of world war ii you know but um no maybe it was a blast right and you could see how a teenage girl would get swept up in that yeah and how it can become very complicated when it's already as we say a complex landscape to navigate in terms of allegiance and what people are like it was I mean in hindsight it's so easy to say like let me just say they were both crumb bums I'm just Peggy Ann Benedict I think they're right crumb bums sure but I'm trying to understand where you know well it's good to understand the psychology and and that's where I sort of began our conversation was saying I can drum up a little bit more empathy for her when I think about how unclear the stakes were and the sides and, you know, her father's acting kind of bizarrely, and this other guy is, you know, really struggling with his boss,

to put it one way. And I wonder how much of, you know, the male ego clash is playing out writ large everywhere in very obvious ways. And then if there's a female ego, it is by necessity sublimated into domestic sphere. And, and so, and I'm, you know, when we talked about having this conversation, you brought up Abigail Adams as a really interesting counterpoint, because I'm thinking like, oh, maybe I should be more sympathetic to this person who, you know, it's not like she could be out running a company or, you know, she couldn't be fighting herself. And so I have to have some sensitivity to the fact that her whatever natural protesting energy she might have has to be channeled through her husband. And so, you know, it takes this kind of interesting route. But, you know, Abigail Adams is this completely

other example of how to be a woman. Yeah, I mean, she, for one thing, she's running the farm by herself, you know, for years and years. And it was like no small enterprise. And I can't remember what, there was something John Adams was doing with the Congress. like he's doing something world historical and you know that day she's I think she's sick and she's getting her kids inoculated for smallpox and it's like like you know which was a totally untested you know practice at that point she's taking a huge risk and she might be killing them and herself but yes you know it adds up so let's go for it getting yeah he's off running the world but i mean she like at abigail abigail is is like well to me she other than jefferson is like one of the most quotable of the revolutionaries just because her letters the

abigail john letters are like when it like kind of the great, like literary product of the revolution, just because they're both such great writers. And I was thinking about her just in terms of her. It wasn't just that she was bright, like her husband, she was also spiteful. And, and like so much of the American side is just fueled by spite. Sure. You know, I guess the american side is just fueled by spite sure you know i guess the british side too that but theirs is more it's more like condescension like you know but the american side is just fueled by this like spite toward um their overlords and there was this moment where like one of her favorite my favorite letters of hers i have that somewhere where did i write that down?

I wrote things down on cards. I love it. Like when we're talking about there aren't like, there aren't two sides. To me, one of the perfect moments of that is the lead up to the Declaration of Independence, because not everyone in the Continental Congress was for declaring independence. And in fact, they they had before they issued that they had this last ditch effort where they write this letter to george the third saying like you're on our side right you can help us out right and he doesn't george the third doesn't even bother to read this letter they send and not everyone was in favor of sending that letter by the way including john adams he just thought it was a waste of time. And because the war had already started in Massachusetts by that point.

So they send this letter, this letter, like, you know, asking the king to help them out one last time. And it comes out that the king doesn't even read it. And when that comes out, Abigail Adams, it's like she's just done with them, you know? And she sends this letter and she says, let us separate. They are unworthy to be our brethren. Let us renounce them. And instead of supplications as formerly

for their prosperity and happiness, let us beseech the Almighty to blast their counsels and bring to naught all their devices. So, like, you don't want to cross her. No, no, no. Yeah. No. My God. Yeah.

I feel we've covered the range of options for women in revolutionary era colonial America. Yeah. I mean, once I saw, I went to a reenactment of the Battle of Brandywine. It's all like, you know, the guys in the uniforms and the cannons and all that. And there was like one of the ladies and she was sitting off to the side, like in her revolutionary garb and she's sitting on a blanket quietly knitting. Yeah. And,

and I mean, it was very absorbing to watch her. Yeah. But to me, but it was also like, you can kind of see why people focus on like these guys running around and there are the like Highlanders with their bear hats and the cannons and there's smoke and action. And you can kind of see why people get a little more intrigued by that side of it.

Yeah, unless we could get her interior monologue, which might be quite fascinating. Because I'm working on the final episode for this season, which I will not spoil here, but it involves revolutionary activity. And the subject of the episode writes at one point how it's harder on the women basically because they have to just keep it all inside and keep going and the men can have the sort of cathartic clash.

And the women are stuck home knitting and darning socks. And worse. I mean, there was the great moment at Valley Forge. They've had this horrible winter. 2,000 of them have died. But they start training with their German trainer and they're getting better. And the news comes from France that the French are going to become officially their allies and they're going to send soldiers and money. And there's a great celebration. But in that moment,

they've gotten that news from france there's a letter from lafayette and it's from his wife and and um their baby has died right so that day like for for him it's you know the total like contrast but you can imagine what it's like for her who was also like this pregnant teenager when he left to go fight in this war and now this this child has died which I mean war is bad but like there's nothing worse than losing a child you know and like that moment to me kind of summarizes the human experience of that or any war, really. Well, I think that's a very poignant and valid stopping point for today. Kind of a bummer.

Let's end on me reminding you that I once saw, I once went to Arnold's tomb, Benedict Arnold's tomb. You know, we went to London. They went to London and he was buried in the church at Battersea, St. Mary's it's called. And in the crypt, which when I went a few years ago, had been turned into a kindergarten. And Benedict Arnold's tomb was right there next to the fish tank. Whoa. Where he belongs. And Benedict Arnold's tomb was right there next to the fish tank. Whoa.

Where he belongs. I was going to say, I think he's lucky to have gotten a spot anywhere. I mean, he landed so poorly. He thought he was going to be received with a hero's welcome. Yeah. And people who knew him literally would pretend not to see him when they passed in the street. Right. So there he is in the kindergarten next to the fish tank. That's amazing.

Well, that is just one of the many gifts you've brought us here today. Thank you so much, Sarah, for talking with us. You're welcome. That does it for this follow-up episode. Join us next time on Significant Others to hear all about a civil rights hero many people have still never heard of. Significant Others is produced by Jen Samples. Our executive producers are Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Colin Anderson. Engineering and sound design by Eduardo Perez, Rich Garcia, and Joanna Samuel. Music and scoring by Eduardo Perez and Hannes Brown.

Research and fact-checking by Michael Waters and Hannah Sio. Special thanks to Lisa Berm, Jason Chalemi, and Joanna Solitaroff. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista.