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Stratford Mail
Finally, a history podcast for folks on the go! Who can spare an hour these days? Give us about 20 minutes, and we'll inform and entertain you!
From Stratford Hall Historic Preserve in Westmoreland County, Virginia, join Vice President of Research and Collections Dr. Gordon Blaine Steffey as he reads over the shoulder of letter-writers of yesteryear.
What to expect? Once a month we feature an historical letter from a onetime resident, associate, ally, or friend of Stratford Hall. Whether the topic is wine, crossing the Delaware, ghosts, or fanciful hats, you'll learn what life on the ground looked like from those who lived the moments that make up our difficult and beloved past. And maybe you'll discover something about your present in our past! If you don't have more than 20 minutes, and you love history, discover Stratford Mail. And share it with your friends!
Stratford Mail
Take Nobody's Word
In 1662, the Royal Society of London adopted a motto that promised a revolution: Nullius in verba—or, on the word of no one. It was a bold renunciation of authority in favor of evidence, yet behind this polished veneer of the Enlightenment lay a messier reality marked by class-coded science and imperial gatekeeping. Even as Society president Sir Isaac Newton modeled dispassionate inquiry, the institution came to operate as a passionate apparatus for elite privilege and British expansion. Fellowship in the Society opened channels into an international fraternity of gentlemen-scientists and into the inner sanctums of British imperial power. As crisis ripened between Britain and its North American colonies, America’s first celebrity leaned on this scientific brotherhood to achieve political reform, while another American patriot rejected it as collusion with the imperial fist.
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