234. Frances Wright — A Few Days in Athens with Tristra Yeager and Eleanor Rust
Frances Wright of Nashoba, Met Museum
How do you engage with others in a polarized society? Early 19-century writer and freethinker Frances “Fanny” Wright offers an ostensible how-to manual in the witty didactic novel she penned at age 19, A Few Days in Athens. Wright’s radical ideas garnered her the praise of Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette and Walt Whitman, to name a few, but detractors dubbed her “The Red Harlot of Infidelity.” Tristra Yeager and Eleanor Rust, hosts of the 2024 podcast “Frances Wright: America’s Forgotten Radical,” join us to discuss Wright’s historical importance and relevance to today’s political and cultural conversations.
Mentioned in this episode:
“Frances Wright: America’s Forgotten Radical” podcast
A Few Days in Athens by Frances Wright
Views of Society and Manners in America by Frances Wright
Frances Wright’s grave in Spring Grove Cemetery
Thomas Jefferson
Walt Whitman
New Harmony, Indiana
Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill, KY