The tucson book festival, and our panel was called women in war because elisabeth had written a wonderful book called the hello girls about women, telephone operator during world war one, who were among the First American women to be in combat settings when they went to france during world war one and kept the troops in touch with each other. And that was wonderful. And i had written a book about women codebreakers during world war two, and also on the panel was kate moore, who had written a wonderful book called radium girls. And that was i remember that elizabeth went first of the three of us. And the minute she started talking, i was like, this is just going to be great. So so youre in for a treat to to hear her speak about her wonderful work. And im such a fan of your book and really look forward to to talking about it and to hearing you talk about it. So id love to just hear you talk a little bit broadly about the book and and its themes and thesis and what caused you to write it. And so i thought i would start with i think anybody whos read anything about womens history in the United States has probably heard the phrase Abigail Adams famous phrase to her husband, john adams. Remember the ladies . When youre writing, when you all down in washington or philadelphia writing that the founding documents and so we we know that phrase but i think few of us fewer of us know what he said in return, because its not quite as pretty as as wed like to think. And i wondered if you could talk a little bit about that exchange, their relationship and the theme of your book, which is that feminism is in fact part and parcel of the american story and was set in motion by the documents that were written at that time. Yeah, its you know, i think theres this is womens history month. And i think theres a tendency to think that if you are looking at womens history, that its sort of like, heres the main dish and heres something that pairs well with it on the side. You know, you are you offer, you know, a Little Something thats kind of fun rather than thinking of it as any kind of driver of history. And in the same way that a lot of historians and authors have said slavery was a driver of American History, its there. This is an element of American History thats really been underplayed. We dont get how the Industrial Revolution is because of all of the women teachers as people whom Abigail Adams said, you know, women should be able to go to high school and and then ladies, ladies academies were started. Womens high schools. And that really lays the basis for making a mass literate labor, you know, working class. And so these are so many ways in which women are really the foundation of American History. And its kind of weird, like if you wrote a history, you said, lets lets write American History. Were going to start by taking out half the people and then were going to talk about the other half. And youre like, where were those other people . Like, you know, doing something . And in fact, their women were not only doing something right in the sort of basic sense that, you know, reproducing the human race. But also feminists were behind so many of the most important achievements of american society. And so if we rob ourselves of that story, its not like were doing it because, you know, wouldnt it be fun to dress it up . Its because otherwise we dont get like, you know, how do we get Social Security here . You know, how do we get abolition in law . You know, in law, not the emancipation proclamation and things like that. So it was you know, it was very fun. I have to say. Listen, we were talking earlier and, you know, when did you start writing womens history . And i pretty much backed into it. I was one of those people said, im going to go write womens history. But then we started to think about really what were the drivers in some ways of American History in general, these women played such a significant role. And in the case of the hello girls, which is not this book, but the other one, i mean, these were women who feel the 26 million phone calls from the trenches between the commandant and the trenches talking men through the night, getting orders conveyed, you know, doing the things that made the world go, oh, so theres just so many stories where you go, wow, why would we rob our selves of that history . Why would we treat it as a side part of history as opposed to an integral part of history . Okay. But the adamses so she says, remember the ladies and he says, oh, no, i dont think so. You know, so its so its so funny and so lies. I think part of the interest of that story is you look at two people who are married. Right. And one of them listening to the other, you know, honey, id like you to think about this. And hes like, so and so shes presuming upon the marital relationship, right . And shes presuming his good goodwill. And she says, id like you to remember the ladies when youre writing the new laws so that future laws wont allow bad men, not men like you. She says very diplomatically. Not most men, but there are some men who will use the power they have as absolute tyrants with impunity, with impunity. And, you know, were not a part of making the laws. What right you have to put laws over us. So john says, i cannot but laugh. You know, thats what he writes back. I can not but laugh. And then he goes on to say, well, you know, its also kind of not nice. Its a little disloyal. Disloyal, you know, and this is sort of the first antifeminist comment, i think, where somebody who you think should be sympathetic but is also concerned about what are the down the road consequences. And so he he blows her off totally. I mean, is is not subtle, but a month later, he writes to another massachusetts legislator and he says, because that guy is thinking about, you know, how should we write the, you know, the Voting Rights of massachusetts . Should we let men of color vote . We let poorer classes vote. So hes writing all that. And john adams says, be careful. Who knows where this is going to end up and depend upon it, or women will ask for a vote. So he says that in 1776, before the declaration of independence, because he knows that the meaning, the heart, the soul of that document is that all men, women, whatever are created equal. And so its kind of this internal logic that really drives American History. And women are so much a part of that. Right. But i guess sort of for me, the cognitive dissonance is that, well, the surprise for me was to know that, yeah, they really did actually talk about inclusion. Like they considered being inclusive. And that meant no. So it wasnt like it wasnt like they forgot. It wasnt like they were only looking at the men in the room and they were they really gave it some thought and some discussion and thought. And i dont want to go down that road. That was i was taken by that about. Sure. And we often say, you know, do people know slavery was wrong or maybe they just didnt know back then. Right. Right. Then you look at this where people discuss these carefully. And in that case, i thought this was really fun and very interesting fact i didnt know, which is that new jersey. So there are 13 colonies, right, that become states and each of them has to decide who do we let vote and who do we not know . Do we write color into a race, into the constitution . Et cetera. New jersey of them all just says, well, course, everybody can vote if theyre over a certain age and they own some property, some minimal property, which means that women and men of color who were Property Owners and were not enslaved, could vote in new jersey. And they did this for like 30 years. And then they went, oh, no, you know, dont like that, but not feeling it anymore. And at that point, they just without anybody really raising a stink that we know they disenfranchize women. And also propertied men of color. So people knew is exactly what you said, eliza. People knew that this is where it could go. And they made a very conscious effort to limit the extent of change. Now, before we dam them utterly, i mean, we have to remember that they could barely get agreement on declaring independence. So, you know, abigails writing, john, they havent declared independence yet. And shes kind of like knocking on the door. Why havent you declared independence yet . And she also says, you know, i dont think those Southern States which are always robbing enslaved people of their liberty, how can how can we count on them to fight as hard as we will here in massachusetts . So both issues come up in that same letter and i guess on the flip side of that, the point that you make, if i understand it correctly, is that this fundamental idea behind our founding documents that all men would be tyrants if they could, the idea that we must resist a monarchy and a sort of authoritarian form of government because even, you know, absolute power corrupts absolutely that even attempts to get a person would be it would become a tyrant so that that founding insight of the American Revolution and the creation of the country also then becomes the engine for what you lay out in this fascinating book, which is. Yeah. And so the case has to be made. We have written out, but then we have to win back or win period. All of the various rights that you go through in your book on that principle, men would be tyrants if they could. Right . And, you know, i mean, this is an era in which, you know, theres the early organizing against slavery in england, you know, around the same time. So could the american colonies have abolished slavery . Could they have imprisoned Chinese Women . We dont know. I mean, those are but its not like these things were as strange an idea as we might now in retrospect, think, oh, they just dont think of that because they did think about it and they thought they couldnt get it. And and so people like abigail and john, you know, two human beings caught in that and that notion of of someone being a tyrant that really goes back to john locke. Okay. I wont get too down in the weeds here. I know that that starts to put people to sleep. John locke, wasnt that in like, you know, you know, first semester college. But he was the person who articulated the rationale for democracy, for Representative Government and his he had. What are famously called two treatises of government every talks about the second one where he said, you know, men are spokesmen and men should be able to choose their governors and change them as easily as they would their physicians. Theres no reason why any man has, you know, the right by his royal blood to rule over me. That was the second treatise. The first treatise as a treatise against patriarchy. And in fact, the document was called patriarchy. And it was a preceding argument that preceded lockes, where someone was saying, you know, well, you see, there was adam and eve and and yeah, they blew it, you know. Well, eve blew it. But what, you know, what god gave to adam was the right to rule his family and kings were all, you know, from the lineal descendants of adam. Anyway, as i said, it gets down to the weeds. But what was interesting is that the first people to speak out against patriarchy were white men in the American Revolution. They said its not. It shouldnt be the case that one man rules us. He why is he any different from us . Isnt a man made by his education . And of course, thats why Abigail Adams is. Her real demand is for womens education. Yes, people are made by their education. And why arent we allowed . So talk about your prince of all of organization for your book, the decisions that you made in deciding how to lay it out and how to proceed and who to include. So the book is organized by eight chapters and each chapter represents like a rung in a ladder, right . How what rights do we get first and how does that now allow us to get a step up so that you can go for the next thing and so in a way, thats an organizational principle of the book, you know, because i think we dont know, like when did women get to keep their wages if they earn them . Because you didnt for the first 150 years or something. So if you earned a wage, it belonged to your husband. So at what point did a woman get custody of her own children, which is fairly recent also. So i wanted to kind of scaffold that in those eight chapters, but i also did the saying of because i always feel like we have this idea that feminists are whiners, you know, that theyre just kind of whiners, like i broke my fingernail. Oops, you know, whatever. And so we trivialize or tended diminish these issues. And so in each chapter, i have a woman whos i think is the face of feminism. Shes the person who, like, has a plan, you know, like an Abigail Adams who thinks of something and like, i need to try to get other people to think about this. I need to implement this thing that, you know, seems important to me. Shes an organizer. But the second person is i always call the why we care, you know, why should we care . Like, was it really that bad . You know, were husbands pretty nice, and you got to stay home. My mom had seven kids. My father would say, well, you could just stay home. So im thinking this seven kids, in ten years, you get to stay home. Part is really not a big advantage in terms of quality, although, you know. And so what would happen in this and for example in the chapter on Abigail Bayley i have one. Abigail adams theres an Abigail Bayley and shes a mother of 17 and her husband is a wonderful veteran of the revolutionary war or, you know, esteemed military officer and also a predator. And so she lives in a world where its similar to what todays conditions would be like in afghanistan. There is women when we start out, they dont have the right necessarily even to go out of their front door if their husbands dont give them permission. Oh, by the way, most husbands do as abigail said, but some dont. And the law gives them the right not only to keep a wife at home to chastise her as he see fits. I mean, its in law, you know, you can beat your wife if she doesnt behave. Women dont have education. Women cant vote. So theres so many basic ways in which law just doesnt protect you. And, you know, we all know laws and perfect. Right . But think of all the so many ways in which like what law protects us. And so Abigail Bailey, you know, shes this crazy story where her husband, first of all, firms out the kids for pay because thats his right. She has no custody at all. And he also starts assaulting one of their daughters previous to that, he had like attacked some of the servants in the house. And when that got out and the town came down on him. Yes, i go against my self and he started preying on their daughter and Abigail Bailey doesnt know what to do about it because heres the law. All right, lets what . Real backdoor, folks. So in that period of time, if a person was, lets say a woman was attacked as and it was proven in a court of law, she could have to have to wear the letter eye on her blouse for the rest of her life. So we all know about hester prynne, but the victim has to write on her blouse for the rest of her life. And you could even be sentenced to prison and even be sentenced to death if you didnt report it soon enough, which, of course, we all know all ten year olds go out and do that right. And so the other problem is that if she had divorced her husband, you know, he had complete custody. All husbands, dead wives did not own their children at all. And so these are the kind of laws that men as well as women, would look at and go, you know, thats really we dont is that what we want . Are those that are thats kind of people we want to be. And so you start to see the breakdown of these laws and the lives of women who suffered i mean, suffered really suffered from the way the law was set up. By the way, shes a total heroine, grabs a horse, right. 200 miles in the snow. And im not making that up and saves the kids. So you have to read the book right. And and the stories are very painful to read the suffering. I mean, its history now. And and its its documents and its its your book is wonderfully readable. But the suffering that that the and you know, the the the prominent privilege when two who are making the laws or leading the way they suffered as well and that in many ways i mean thats one of the things that i really took away from the book is how much all of these women endured in their private lives because they were so close. I mean, a lot of it being family related, loss of children or, you know, loss of beloved husband, developing a Mental Illness and and and that really comes through i mean, your your compassion and treatment and your illustrating of of how important their private lives were and how acute their suffering was and how, you know, a woman like the second abigail, i mean, its just extra ordinary that she was able to escape. And of course, theres elizabeth packard. Do you want to talk about it . Sure. So. And by the way, i want to say i try to avoid the utterly gruesome because i think that the facts do speak for. They do. And so you dont have to, you know, amp it up with adverbs and adjectives, etc. , etc. , to the writers out there, because theyre just these are these are simple people trying to live their lives in simple dignity. And the obstacle is that the law presents and and men as well as women sympathize with them. You know, Abigail Bailey, you know, the sheriff waived his fees. The attorney waived his fees, and the judge waived his fees to get this guy convicted because but also all they could say to her is, well, were really sorry, but the law by law, your husband has a right to your daughters. And by law, you know, if you get divorced, he gets all the daughters and you get nothing because he also owns everything. So if you divorce this man, you just end up, you know, in New Hampshire in the snow or something. So i think that that suffering is, to me, right . I mean, as historians or as journalists, our job is to be witnesses and not overplay it, but to just help us all witness in a loving way what we what we care about, which is kind of other people. And help he