R2 Studios

R2 Studios explores history through podcasts. We tell unexpected stories based on the latest research to connect listeners with the past.

Podcasts

Worlds Turned Upside Down

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Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant

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Antisemitism, U.S.A.

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Finding Jane Austen

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The Green Tunnel

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Revolutions Reconsidered

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Consolation Prize

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Recent Episodes

March 7, 2025

Episode 13: The Massacre

In response to rioting and protests over the Townshend Acts, the British deploy four regiments to Boston, leading to a deadly shooting on March 5, 1770, a massacre that wounds a family.

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Feb. 25, 2025

Episode 57: Those Tumultuous Assemblies of Men

Dr. Cynthia Kierner joins host Kathryn Gehred to discuss a 1778 letter from Richard Henry Lee to his sister Hannah Lee Corbin. In a lost letter, Hannah previously expressed her frustrations that widows are being taxed without representation. In this...

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Jan. 28, 2025

Episode 56: The Most Dreadful Of All Enemies

Dr. Jacqueline Beatty joins host Kathryn Gehred to discuss The Petition of Belinda from 1783 in which Belinda Sutton petitions The Massachusetts General Court for the funds left to her by her enslaver Isaac Royall after he fled the colonies during the...

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Dec. 20, 2024

Episode 55: An Insurrection Was Hourly Expected

Ramin Ganeshram joins Kathryn Gehred to discuss excerpts from Janet Shaw’s Journal of a lady of quality; being the narrative of a journey from Scotland to the West Indies, North Carolina, and Portugal, in the years 1774 to 1776. Ganeshram and Gehred...

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Dec. 18, 2024

Episode 12: The Conspiracy

In the wake of the Stamp Act Crisis, the British chart a new course for empire in North America by imposing taxes on paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea, pitting British Americans against Parliament…and each other.

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Dec. 6, 2024

Finding Jane Austen

You've heard of Jane Austen. She's in our movie theaters, our high school classrooms, even on the British pound, she's inspired more than 400 novel adaptations and probably more than a few of your favorite movies and series. You might even consider...

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Nov. 26, 2024

Episode 54: I Am Frightened When I Look At Her

Mary Wigge joins Kathryn Gehred to discuss a letter from Lucy Flucker Knox to her husband General Henry Knox in which she describes how she spends her days during the Revolutionary War. Lucy, a wealthy Tory's daughter whose parents and siblings have...

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Nov. 5, 2024

Bonus: A Humble Origin Story

In this bonus episode of Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant, Kathryn Gehred dives into the podcast's origin story. While working as an editor of the Papers of Martha Washington, Gehred became very familiar with how people wrote letters in the...

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Oct. 29, 2024

Episode 53: By Being Almost Murdered

Dr. Maeve Kane joins Kathryn Gehred to explore Konwatsi'tsiaienni Molly Brant’s life during the American Revolution. Brant was a member of the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation, one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Kane and Gerhred...

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Oct. 22, 2024

Episode 11: The Resistance

With the Stamp Act defeated, the Sons of Liberty in New York City celebrate by raising a Liberty Pole in tribute to George III, William Pitt, and Liberty, provoking a violent confrontation with British soldiers quartered in the city's barracks.

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Oct. 22, 2024

Season 4: A Season of Revolution

We are excited to announce that on October 29 Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant will be back with Season Four. This season, we're exploring revolutionary America through the words written by women. We'll follow along in letters as women...

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Sept. 13, 2024

Episode 10: The Stamp

In the mid-1760s, British fears that a new war with France was only a matter of time leads King George III and his ministers to draw up plans for a permanent army in North America, and a Stamp Tax on the colonies to pay for it, sparking massive...

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