S03E02 | Wives and Their Authors: Elizabeth and Herman Melville, Literary Labor, and Women’s Work

C19: America in the 19th Century

This episode explores the extraordinary efforts that Elizabeth Melville undertook, after her husband Herman's death, to republish his books and to preserve his records. Examining the way that Elizabeth's efforts were written out of the "Melville Studies" that her labors helped to found, we consider larger philosophical questions about how many lives stand behind the career that One Great Man gets to have. This episode was produced by Adam Fales (UChicago) and Jordan Alexander Stein (Fordham), and it features Rachel Sagner Buurma (Swarthmore), Meredith Farmer (Wake Forest), Laura Heffernan (North Florida), Natasha Hurley (UAlberta), Wyn Kelley (MIT), Laurie Robertson-Lorant (UMass Dartmouth), and Elizabeth Renker (Ohio State). Additional production support by Rachel Boccio (CUNY LaGuardia). Full episode transcript available here: bit.ly/C19PodS03E02.