The Subtext: Yesteryear and the Trad Wife Movement with Beth Allison Barr

**Savannah Locke** (0:00)
Hi, Beth, welcome to our show.

**Beth Allison Barr** (0:01)
Hi, Savannah, it's so fun to be here.

**Savannah Locke** (0:03)
Isn't it so exciting?

**Beth Allison Barr** (0:04)
It's nice.

**Savannah Locke** (0:05)
And you are on the tail end of having a magical time in the archives for the Southern Baptist Convention.

**Beth Allison Barr** (0:12)
Magical time indeed.

**Savannah Locke** (0:14)
I mean, it is really fun. I remember when we were doing research for All the Buried Women, people were like, what are the archives like? And I was like, envision hundreds, if not thousands of bankers boxes that are organized alphabetically sometimes, sometimes by topic, that you just get to go through and rummage.

**Beth Allison Barr** (0:35)
Right. And they have folders that have letters and people's correspondence and sometimes saying things that they might not have really wanted for people to be reading several decades later.

**Savannah Locke** (0:48)
Strangers from 2026 That's exactly right.

**Beth Allison Barr** (0:50)
But it's all there.

**Savannah Locke** (0:51)
It is really magical. I remember one of my favorite things that I read in the archives was from a Southern Baptist missionary named Bertha Smith.
She has several boxes of her own. And what decade was she around?

**Beth Allison Barr** (1:02)
So she died in the late 80s or early 90s.

**Savannah Locke** (1:06)
Yeah. So I think these must have been from like the 30s or 40s, maybe your 50s around there. And we, I was able to find her journals. And I read through all of her journals and it was just really moving to read someone's personal experience who was doing something that was really new for her time, especially being a woman in that era.
And so I really love the archives and I'm so happy you've been able to spend time there.

**Beth Allison Barr** (1:31)
It's been fun.

**Savannah Locke** (1:32)
So if you are a listener of the subtext, you are going to recognize that my co-host, Lee C. Camp is missing.

**Beth Allison Barr** (1:39)
I am not Lee.

**Savannah Locke** (1:40)
You are not Lee.
And this is the first episode I'm doing solo, which is kind of stressing me out, but I'm so happy to have you here with me, Beth, because we can do an episode together, Savannah, because we did a whole podcast together called All the Buried Women. So yeah, we have some experience in this area. But Lee is in Washington, DC, doing important things with important people and just couldn't make this work. And so we're just going to fly solo. And if you miss Lee and you don't like this episode, just know I miss him too. And it's going to be okay. And next week he'll be back. What we do for an introduction segment, in lieu of that though, Beth, is we talk about what we are reading or watching or listening to.
Can you tell me anything you've been reading, watching or listening to lately?

**Beth Allison Barr** (2:25)
I could probably do all three.

**Savannah Locke** (2:26)
Okay. Yes, you can.

**Beth Allison Barr** (2:28)
So actually, my husband and I started a new show to us, but you've probably watched it a long time ago. But we just started For All Mankind, which is the alternate history of the moon.
And when the Russians got to the moon first. And that's actually really fascinating. So I've been very involved with that. And I'm going to be gone for 12 days and he is not allowed to watch it while I'm gone.

**Savannah Locke** (2:52)
You can't?

**Beth Allison Barr** (2:52)
No, so until we get back. So I don't know.

**Savannah Locke** (2:56)
And that I feel like hits a lot of your interests of history, but also space.

**Beth Allison Barr** (3:00)
Yes, so it was so, you know, it kind of fit more with what my husband was interested in, but he got me on the alternate history thing. And so we were like, we'll try it.
And both of us got into it really fast. So yeah, so it's really fascinating.

**Savannah Locke** (3:14)
Okay, what are you listening to or reading as well?

**Beth Allison Barr** (3:17)
So well, listening, I'm always listening to my history podcasts. So that's always fun.
But reading, I'm reading a really good book that is, it's written by a historian, but it's a popular.
And it's essentially an alternate history of Rome. It's called A Room of One's Own and it's by Emily Sutton. And it is the Roman history from the perspective of women. And it's been really good. I really love it. So yeah, that's what I've had on my bedside table.