Diane Ehrenpreis joins Kathryn Gehred to discuss a letter from Martha Jefferson to a Mrs. Madison dated August 8, 1780 in which Jefferson encourages women to join together and raise funds to support the Continental soldiers. This letter is one of only four known correspondences in Jefferson’s hand. In this episode, Diane and Katy discuss some of the ways Jefferson’s words have been misinterpreted in the past.

Diane Ehrenpreis is the Curator of Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. She has worked in the Curatorial Department at Monticello for twenty-three years, researching and building the collection. In her capacity as a curator, she supervised a complete study and reinstallation of Monticello’s second and third floor rooms, as well as Jefferson’s Private Suite. Currently, she is overseeing plans to reinstall the Dining and Tea Rooms to better interpret Thomas Jefferson’s aesthetic and didactic intent. Forthcoming work includes an article co-authored with scholar Nicole Brown on Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson's role as an activist living in Revolutionary Virginia, one that was initially suppressed by her partner and fellow revolutionary, Thomas Jefferson. She holds an M.A. in Art History from Boston University and B.A. in Art History from University of Illinois at Chicago.

Find the official transcript here.

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant is a production of R2 Studios, part of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

“Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson to Eleanor Conway Madison, 8 August 1780,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-03-02-0615.

Esher Reed, “The Sentiments of an American Woman,” 1780, Virginia Humanities, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/the-sentiments-of-an-american-woman-1780/.

“George Washington to Esther De Berdt Reed, 14 July 1780,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-27-02-0093.