Dr. Lauren Duval joins Kathryn Gehred to discuss a letter from Elizabeth Drinker to her husband Henry dated February 26, 1778. In 1777, not long before the British Army occupied Philadelphia, the Continental Congress exiled Henry and 19 other prominent Quaker men. In this letter, Elizabeth provides Henry with an update on life in occupied Philadelphia and the Scottish officer who has recently taken up quarters in the Drinker home.

Lauren Duval is an assistant professor of history at the University of Oklahoma and a Gibson Fellow in Democracy at the University of Virginia's Karsh Institute of Democracy. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the New York Public Library, the David Library of the American Revolution, and the Massachusetts Historical Society. Dr. Duval earned her PhD from American University in Washington, DC.

Duval's book, The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence (Dec 2025), narrates the American Revolution and its aftermath from the vantage points of households in British-occupied cities

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.

Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker to Henry Drinker, 26 February 1778, Harverfod College Quaker & Special Collections, https://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/resources/hcmc-854.