Over this series, we’ve learned how famous Frances Wright was in her lifetime: influential, well-connected, notorious, scandalous. So how could her star fade so quickly? Where are the Broadway shows, biopics, and bestsellers about her? In this episode, we trace Frances Wright’s later years, her death and burial in Cincinnati, Ohio, and what happened to her legacy.

Some of the people closest to Wright didn’t keep her fame alive, which is heartbreaking, but it’s also part of a bigger pattern. Why do women keep slipping out of the historical record, even when they are legends in their own time?

We welcome back Rachel Hope Cleves (University of Victoria) to explain how most people—especially women—tend to fade from historical memory.

To keep doing our part to restore the record, we asked scholars to tell us about two women who were Fanny's contemporaries in New Harmony, Indiana. We hear from Silvia Rode (University of Southern Indiana) about Gertrude Rapp’s nearly forgotten role in the Harmonist community. Then Linda Warrum (New Harmony Working Men’s Institute) tells how she solved the mystery of Clorion, an artist associated with Robert Owen’s New Harmony, uncovering her real name and story.

This is a podcast about Frances Wright, reformer, philosopher, writer, activist, abolitionist before it was cool. Feminist long before the word existed.

Want to go deeper? Find shownotes with links to resources and rabbit holes here on our substack site⁠. There’s even more to read on our Bookshop.org lists here!

Frances Wright: America’s Forgotten Radical is a co-production of Newyear Media and Her Reputation for Accomplishment, written and hosted by Eleanor Rust and Tristra Yeager. Made possible by a grant from the Working Men's Institute, New Harmony, Indiana, and by the generosity of the Efroymson Family Fund. Thanks also to the Bloomington Area Arts Council for supporting this podcast.

Robert Dale Owen is voiced by David Meyer. Music by Eleanor Dubinsky. Editing and audio support by Josh Perez.