Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution with Dr. Mary Bilder
Tuesday, January 24th
7:30 – 9:00pm via zoom
Zoom Link: https://bit.ly/FemaleGenius
Dr. Mary Bilder will speak about her new book Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution, a provocative biography investigating the rise of a radical new idea in the English-speaking world: female genius. Bildre finds the perfect exemplar in the English-born Eliza Harriot Barons O’Connor, a pathbreaking female educator who delivered a University of Pennsylvania lecture attended by George Washington as he and other Constitutional Convention delegates gathered in Philadelphia. As the first such public female lecturer, her courageous performance likely inspired the gender neutral language of the Constitution. Female Genius makes clear that America’s framing moment did not belong solely to white men and offers an inspirational transatlantic history of women who believed in education and political representation as a political right.
Boston College Law Professor Dr. Mary Sarah Bilder received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, her J.D. from Harvard Law School, and her A.M. (History) and Ph.D. from Harvard University in the History of American Civilization/American Studies.
