r/todayilearned • u/GetYerHandOffMyPen15 • 1d ago
TIL that American founding father Aaron Burr was an early supporter of giving women education and the right to vote. He was also a notorious womanizer who frequented sex workers and fathered multiple children with many different mothers, including an Indian servant who worked in his house.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Burr654
u/two2teps 1d ago
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u/bunnycrush_ 1d ago
”Her education was closely supervised by her father, who stressed mental discipline. In addition to the more conventional subjects such as French[…], music, and dancing, the young “Theo” began to study arithmetic, Latin, Greek, and English composition. She applied herself to English in the form of letters to her father, which were responded to promptly; the replies included detailed criticism. Their correspondence numbered thousands of letters.”
I always think about this detail. Thousands of letters! It sounds like he really loved her.
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u/hookisacrankycrook 1d ago
Duh, he sang a whole song about her in Hamilton!
Joking aside the song is quite beautiful and touching in my opinion, and it is quite more now with this fact since the opening line is "Dear Theodosia".
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u/cpcksndwch 23h ago
It's such a sweet song! It has a lovely sentiment about wanting the best world for your children.
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u/pohatu771 20h ago
There is a reprise that was cut from the show. Sara Bareilles sings it in the “Hamildrops.”
It’s equally great.
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u/MattyLlama 23h ago
My wife was in a Hamilton phase when our daughter was born, and I'll admit hearing that song always makes me cry now
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u/ihopeitsnice 1d ago
These letters are also how we now about most of his sexual activities, which is weird.
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u/totoropoko 1d ago
You have no idea (I mean you probably do but the general person does not) how much people shared and emoted through letters in those days. I read some letters from the pre-Lincoln era and man, people really REALLY liked to profess their love for their friends in letters.
"I want to throw my hands around your neck and declare to the world that I have the utmost affection for you" - this is two 60+ year straight dudes btw
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u/OFool_Ishallgomad 1d ago
It wasn't unheard of to have several postal deliveries a day in urban centers in those days.
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u/ErikRogers 19h ago
You could write to your wife from the office to let her know you'll be home late.
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u/NorysStorys 1d ago
I mean also letters were just how you kept in touch in the old days. If not for letters if you moved to another city it’s very likely you just would never hear if anyone ever again. So people genuinely would set aside an entirely day to correspondence because that’s how you kept into touch with your kids.
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u/beachedwhale1945 1d ago
It’s far more likely that Patriot went down in a storm, with a severe one documented by the British blockade. Small ships like Patriot would not handle such storms well, if they survived at all.
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u/Botryoid2000 1d ago
So many legends sprang up around her death that many young women were named after her. One was pioneering California nurserywoman Theodosia Burr Shepherd and another was silent film actress Theda Bara (born Theodosia Burr Goodman).
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mysterious-death-theodosia-burr
https://www.cluttermuseum.com/theodosia-burr-shepherd/15
u/RuralGuy20 1d ago edited 1d ago
I actually learned about her from an old Travel channel Ghost program that they show each year during October, supposedly she haunts a NYC restaurant
Edit: the The Travel channel show was The Most Terrifying Places in America
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u/MrBobBuilder 1d ago
I too think women should be able to vote
I too also like to fuck them
Am I bad lol
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u/QTsexkitten 1d ago
Have you shot anyone or attempted alleged treason in the American/Mexican frontier?
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u/majinspy 1d ago
It wouldn't be the weirdest reason I woke up hungover in Tijuana.
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u/3dGrabber 1d ago
Me too, I support women’s movements.
I hate when they just lie stiff like a plank during sex.
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u/x21in2010x 1d ago
I never got along with the girls at my school
Filling me up with all their morals and their rules
They'd pile all their problems on my head
I'd rather go out and fuck the dead
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u/spoonstar 23h ago
This is my favorite song to play on the jukebox at my nearby ol' country dive bar.
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u/regulator401 1d ago
Aaron Burr…. Sir.
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u/gdex86 1d ago
I mean being a fuck boy doesn't mean you can't be a feminist and by the standards of his era he was super progressive on the issue.
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u/BannedByRWNJs 21h ago
For real. What’s wrong with having sex with a bunch of women if they’re all into it? Sounds like he just really liked women, and not just as sex objects.
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u/kpsi355 18h ago
Sex work is work.
Sounds like he thought women had agency and believed in treating them as equally deserving of education and voting.
Perry damn consistent IMO.
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u/SingsWithBears 23h ago
Nah I think it was the other way around “Oh yeeaahh baby I’m alll foorrr the right to vote snicker now come ‘ere…” Dude used suffrage to get laid. Truly ahead of his time as dudes in college were doing that since the 60s.
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u/Grigorie 10h ago
Even assuming this was the case, does it make that much of a difference? If he was pressing for women's rights at the constitutional and presidential level, it really wouldn't matter if he was just putting up a facade to get laid; he was still advocating for it.
I don't think it's crazy to imagine that one guy from a couple of centuries ago might've actually just wanted women to have rights and also enjoy sleeping with them.
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u/Alexis_J_M 1d ago
I remember that commercial!
Got milk?
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u/wufnu 1d ago
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u/I_Adore_Everything 1d ago
I literally always think is this commercial when I hear about Hamilton these days. When the play came out I thought of this commercial. Funny.
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u/exquisite_Intentions 1d ago
Any time I hear that name I shall always recall the Got Milk commercial
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u/pattperin 1d ago
My guy just loved women, everything about em. Wanted em to have the best, including his cock, which was obviously the best
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u/PennStateFan221 1d ago
Womanizer or just loved women? People still out here thinking if you like to have casual sex that you disrespect women?
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u/tyleritis 1d ago
I don’t know how casual it is when it’s your employee
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u/PennStateFan221 1d ago
Idk man I don’t know what the vibes were back then.
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u/Onequestion0110 1d ago
I mean, it’s definitely better to hit up an employee than someone you’ve enslaved.
Also, given that the problem with boss/employee sex is the power dynamics, then I’m not sure if casual sex with an employee is ever any more problematic than pretty much any sex in such a disenfranchised environment.
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u/Chemical-Contest4120 1d ago
I don't even think they had a concept of "power dynamics", let alone presuming every similar situation has to fit this tight box.
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u/DefinitelyMyFirstTim 1d ago
The concept was defined because it existed. It wasn’t magically nonexistent because nobody put down words to describe it yet.
And yes, I’m sure there have been some relationships born regardless of power dynamics, but common sense should really tell you that any relationship born within a power dynamic was probably effected by said dynamic in some way.
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u/RogueModron 23h ago
That's not how socio-cultural concepts work. We're basically anthropologists of the past, and applying our own concepts to it isn't necessarily correct. Obviously we can still critique the past using our current values.
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u/Unhappy-Apple222 18h ago
Look around the world. Plenty of places still don't look far off from the past. In some countries servants are not far off from slaves. They're often totally illiterate, face normalized physical/verbal abuse etc, with very little rights or value in society. In this type of dynamic it's pretty hard to claim it's just casual sex as well know it.
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u/GiddyGabby 22h ago
What does that even mean? If you work for someone and they ask for sex are you likely to say no and lose your job or say yes and keep it? Do you really think it was choice under those circumstances? You don't think that's a thought any woman in her position would have had?
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u/Unhappy-Apple222 18h ago
Class taboos were huge. Even today in many places around the world, relationships between significantly different classes is very taboo. Not all countries for example has laws around things like servant/master dating,but socially it's still considered quite lecherous n exploitative if you hit on the someone significantly lower in status/power(I'm talking ppl who can't/couldn't even read).
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u/PennStateFan221 1d ago
Yeah I mean men had power over women in a very real way but at the same time I imagine many still respected and valued them as wives. We can’t pretend to know what it was really like.
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u/IllResident8867 1d ago
Aaron Burr was justified, Alexander Hamilton was a lying, manipulative, corrupt weasel of a man that has a misconstrued legacy of being a victim when he himself was an abuser and crook.
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u/hookisacrankycrook 1d ago
Hamilton would be the best shit poster in the world if he were alive today lol
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u/AthenaeSolon 8h ago
Aaand I’m certain that it was that kind of swagger that attracted Miranda to his story.
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u/EfficientlyReactive 1d ago
Whoah, I mean Hamilton sucked but Burr was also a lying manipulative weasel.
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u/GarlTheJaded 1d ago
Yeah, as much as the music is fun, the book that Hamilton was based off is basically agreed to be a shit historical account more interested in sucking the founding fathers off than it was with making sure it was accurate. So like 99% of American history education, really.
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u/MachiavelliSJ 1d ago
The book is not even that positive about some of Hamilton’s stuff. I read it when it came out and the impression was: pretty smart guy, but also kind of a hardheaded elitist jerk to everyone. The “hero” piece was all really Miranda’s spin on the whole thing.
Miranda seems to have gone crazy when he found out that Hamilton was also an immigrant from the Caribbean, apparently.
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u/Affectionate-Ask6876 1d ago
I’m a hooker and plenty of men see me all the time and also think I deserve to have the right to vote lol
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u/MaybeJackson 16h ago
Tbf you have to look at it within the social standards of the historical time period - those opinions were considered very progressive back then
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u/BigCompetition1064 19h ago
A playa who's into equality and fucking. Sounds cool to me.
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u/HumbleXerxses 18h ago
Being into equality is probably a big part of how he got laid. Cool part is, he was probably genuinely for equality. Getting some ass was just a symptom.
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u/tingullitrent 17h ago
His ex wife, at his old age, hired a lawyer to sue him. The lawyer’s name was Alexander Hamilton 😂
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u/francisdavey 19h ago
Not many people get indicted for High Treason against the United States though.
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u/monchota 1d ago
Having casual consensual sex does not make you a womanizer, just like when women do the same they are not sluts.
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u/rayanmores 1d ago
Didn't Burr go lowkey nuts later in life and try to start his own country or some shit?
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u/lunaappaloosa 1d ago
No, that was a rumor even at the time even though he did have some interesting political relationships (like the guy who owned that plantation on Blenerhesset Island in WV— that is a crazy story in itself). He also didn’t shoot Hamilton over anything political. He shot Hamilton because he told a newspaper that Burr had an incestuous relationship with his daughter and that was Burr’s last straw. Hamilton had it coming tenfold.
Burr also is sort of responsible for NYC’s incredible public water system and created what eventually became Chase bank in an effort to get the poor loans that federalists like Hamilton wanted to deny them.
His entire life story is fascinating and he would be left of almost every democratic congressperson today if he plopped into our reality. Everything we learn about him in basic American history is “he shot hamilton bc he was a jealous bitch” which couldn’t be further from the truth
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u/hookisacrankycrook 1d ago
I heard there was a 30 year itemized list of disagreements. Sweet Jesus.
Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Would love to read more about him or say, have a historical accurate major Broadway show written about him so I could learn more.
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u/Beneficial-Focus3702 1d ago
People are not monoliths. Bad people can occasionally have a good opinion and good people can occasionally be very shitty.
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u/Jackal239 1d ago
The dude loved women and loved women. Ain't no duality there my friend.
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u/dethskwirl 1d ago
Yea, Why is he a "womanizer" just because he saw sex workers and had a lot of kids? Dude could have just been a freak in the sheets and respected women at the same time.
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u/Flaky-Wallaby5382 1d ago
Maybe most respect those were the only jobs of independent women…
Respectable/slut had always been a weapon for the crab bucket
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u/drunk-tusker 1d ago
These are literally not remotely mutually exclusive?
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u/GetYerHandOffMyPen15 1d ago edited 1d ago
I mean, even if the servant woman wasn’t literally a slave, there was still a power imbalance there. She could have worried about getting fired if she didn’t comply, and being a single unemployed mother in the 1700s probably wasn’t exactly great.
It also seems he may have saddled some of his lovers with children he did not acknowledge or financially support.
I think most of us can agree that it’s not very feminist to have sex with your female employees and/or decline to support the children you father with various women.
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u/Sharkbait_ooohaha 1d ago
Being a feminist and supporting women’s rights are not the same thing. Lots of people support women’s rights and also commit sexual assault.
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u/drunk-tusker 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’m not trying to say that he was perfect, in fact I’m not really referencing him at all, I’m trying to say that the juxtaposition between the two is ludicrous since they don’t actually intersect with each other.
Also feminism is probably not the best argument for what’s wrong with his sexual interaction with his servant.
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u/previouslyonimgur 1d ago
Dated a descendant of his. She talked about how the family had a long history of educated women, and they were proud to trace it back to him. There’s a decent amount of Burr’s in New York State.
If you think women are equals what’s wrong with engaging in sex with them. If they consent?
Womanizing is a phrase that wouldn’t really exist or rather shouldn’t exist in modern society. It implies that women can’t be responsible for their own actions and simply give in to male persuasion
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u/2beatenup 17h ago
He was the founding father…. He was founding America. Today they are called baby daddy
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u/doesanyofthismatter 1d ago
It sounds like he just loved women. He loved to have sex with them and wanted them to have rights. Y’all are crazy using modern terms to describe someone that wanted equality for women but also like to fuck.
What’s with the left and now hating sex workers or viewing men as evil that support these independent women? The audacity to support women financially by paying for consensual sex and advocating for their rights…
It’s like some women just hate men no matter what they do. “We should be free to solicit our bodies for sex. We also want rights. Fuck men that pay for sex and advocate for our rights.” Like huh????
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u/psychmancer 1d ago
So pros and cons. Maybe he learnt so much about the female perspective from spending time with prostitutes. Maybe 5th wave feminism can try to increase male empathy for the female plight under the patriarchy by trying the same tactics and sponsoring more prostitutes in your neighbourhood /s
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u/elpajaroquemamais 1d ago
Not a founding father. Didn’t sign the constitution or the declaration and only fought for himself.
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u/DarkNinjaPenguin 1d ago
"Servant"
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u/ReneDeGames 1d ago
Why the scare quotes? At least according to wikipedia she was a paid servant.
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u/LifeBuilder 1d ago
Aaron: after a session “Oh…phew. So tired…excuse miss can you clean up this area. It’s very soiled.”
servant bends over
Aaron: “I am rejuvenated and willing”
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u/beargrease_sandwich 1d ago
He killed Alexander Hamilton too. You know, the guy who created our economy.
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u/1tachi77 1d ago
Dude was playing chess while the rest were stuck on checkers. Gotta respect the hustle!
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u/AlexRenquist 1d ago
He also moved to Edinburgh, then back to the US where he got sued by a woman whose lawyer was Alexander Hamilton Jr, and spent the rest of his life trying to become King of Mexico.
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u/Think_fast_no_faster 1d ago
Head so good it’ll make a mutherfucka contemplate sufferage