My New Favorite Historian

I checked out a book from the library a while ago and am just now getting to read it. Or to start to. Books like this take forever for me to get through. So dense, and frankly, a teeny tiny bit boring. But, since it's a subject I'm very interested in, I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to bring it to my son's speech therapy session today, so that I can read it instead of Elle magazine from one year ago. (For real, that's the best they've got.) So I'm trying!

Anyway, there's a great chapter to this book specifically about the plight of women during the Revolution. I know John Taylor, Esq. was here in Middletown in 1777, because the Baptist Church had big discussions about him and decided to kick him out. He was, in fact, put under arrest at that time, I believe, for his role as the Royal Sheriff of Monmouth County. I need more first hand accounts of that, but I'm going with it.

At the time, Phebe would've been about 70, according to the age at her death that's been reported. It's possible she's younger, but no real confirmation on that. I'd thought that she would've been out of everything because she was 70. But I'm rethinking that because of John's prominence. She would've been most likely very affected by the events of the time because of her husband's official role as a kind of representative of Britain.

The chapter of this book that's about women's lives at that time is written by a former Drew University historian, Delight W. Dodyk. I love her name, first of all. She would be a great resource, if I could somehow talk to her. She's retired from the University, though. And I have no time. And (see my last post) I'm not really great at introducing myself to strangers. Plus I'd need to be better prepared. But that's a new goal of mine. To somehow meet her and pick her brain about the time period. And just to talk to her about Phebe. I'd love to hear her thoughts.

Off to the speech therapist and to delve into some military history. Deathly boring to me, but I really need to be able to understand what was happening at that time. I need to grow up, frankly, just in general. This will be another aspect of that.

Here's the link to the book, and although she's in the contents page, her chapter isn't on Google Books. But the link to the book is, any case.

New Jersey in the American Revolution