You're listening to an AirWave Media Podcast.

Ben Franklin's world is a production of Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios.

Before we begin, the episode that follows investigates a story of rape in sexual assault

and how early American legal culture treated female victims and their male assailants.

It goes a long way to help us understand women's legal standing in early American society

and the development of our modern-day ideas about victims, assailants, and sexual assault.

Ultimately, it is the story of how one woman bravely confronted her rapist

and took him to court for his crime.

Hello and welcome to episode 354 of Ben Franklin's world.

The podcast dedicated to helping you learn more about how the people and events of our early

American past have shaped the present-day world we live in. And I'm your host,

Liz Covart. History tells us who we are and how we came to be who we are.

It also allows us to look back and see change over time.

And how far we've come as people and societies.

Of course, history also has the power to show us how little has changed over time.

John Wood's suite, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina,

Chapel Hill, and author of the book The Sewing Girls Tale,

a story of crime and consequences in revolutionary America.

Joins us to investigate the first published rape trial in the United States

and how one woman, Lana Sawyer, bravely confronted the man who raped her by bringing him to court

for his crime. Now as we investigate Lana Sawyer's rape in her legal case, John reveals

who Lana Sawyer was and how she met her rapist, Harry Bedlow.

...