THE REBORN Jemima Wilkinson & Publick Universal Friend

Jemima Wilkinson, born in 1752, was a devout Quaker and skilled medical practitioner in colonial Rhode Island. When a typhus outbreak in 1776 left her feverish and near death, she experienced a series of dramatic religious visions. When the fever finally cleared, the person who rose from Wilkinson’s sickbed declared that Jemima Wilkinson was gone (dead?) and had been replaced by Publick Universal Friend, a genderless evangelist who would become a wildly influential and popular preacher throughout New England. Publick Universal Friend would launch a completely unique (and distinctly American) religious movement, and Friend’s teachings and social influence would permanently shift American views on religion, slavery, race, gender and colonialism. Yet somehow Wilkinson and Friend were nearly forgotten to history until our guest Michael Bronski “reintroduced” the world to this fascinating enigma of a story.

Several of Friend’s possessions are housed at the Yates County Historical Museum and Friend’s final home still stands nearby in Jerusalem, New York.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.

Oil portrait of Publick Universal Friend. Friend wears a black robe, white scarf, and has long ringlets around the ears and cut short on top. — Publick Universal Friend
Portrait courtesy of the Yates County NY History Center

A three-story white home in colonial style stands surrounded by trees. — Friend’s final home in Jerusalem
photo courtesy of Yates County Historical Society

And engraving of a three-story white home surrounded by trees. — Friend’s final home in Jerusalem, New York
drawn by Obedience Fraser Cleveland engraved by Olive Fraser Ingalls

Two brown leather slippers and a black cloth heeled shoe sit on a display case. A card points out their very small size. — Friend’s shoes, on display at the Yates County Historical Society

Engraving of a small barn-shaped plank home with door and one window on the front. — Friend’s first home in Jerusalem c 1873
drawn by Obedience Fraser Cleveland engraved by Olive Fraser Ingalls

Obituary of "Jemima Wilkinson" — Obituary of “Jemima Wilkinson” from a contemporary newspaper
public domain

Michael Bronski is an independent scholar, journalist, writer and long time activist. He is Professor of the Practice in Activism and Media in the Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University. His Queer History of the United States won the 2011 Lambda Literary Award for Best Non-Fiction as well as the 2011 American Library Association Stonewall Israel Fishman Award for Best Non-Fiction. In 2017 he was awarded the awarded the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle. Past recipients include Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Martin Duberman, Samuel R. Delany, and Alison Bechdel. His A Queer History of the United States for Young People was published in 2019.

THE REBORN Jemima Wilkinson & Publick Universal Friend

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