Tag Archives: colonial period

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Judith Sargent Stevens Murray

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Judith Sargent Stevens Murray
Judith Sargent Stevens Murray

Judith Sargent Stevens Murray

Judith Sargent Stevens Murray born into a wealthy Congregationalist home. At the age of 18, she married John Stevens, the son of a prominent Gloucester, Massachusetts family. When Judith’s father, Winthrop Sargent, read Union or A treatise of the Consanguinity of Affinity Between Christ and His Church by James Relly, he and his family began to embrace the new theology Relly proposed.

In 1774, the English Universalist preacher, John Murray, was lecturing in Boston and Judith’s father invited him to their home. John Murray and Judith met for the first time and began a correspondence discussing theology and later, the revolt of the colonies against the British. John Murray, accused of being a spy, accepted a job as army chaplain to avoid expulsion from the colonies. In the meantime, the Congregationalist church suspended Judith, her father and several other members. The following year, these Gloucester Universalists signed Articles of Association and formed the Independent Church of Christ. In 1780, John Murray became their first pastor.

Judith embraced her new religion and became a religious educator for the Universalist children of Gloucester. She and her husband adopted his two nieces and a cousin. She compiled and published the first Universalist catechism written by a woman. In it, she declared that men and women are equal, a central belief of the Universalist church.

In 1786, John Stevens escaped to the West Indies to escape creditors and died. Judith married John Murray in  1788.

Judith began writing poetry under the name “Constantia” She wrote essays on politics, manners, women’s role in society and religion for the periodicals of the day. She published under assumed names because she believed her writings would be taken seriously if the public didn’t know the writer was a woman.

Gentleman and Lady’s Town and Country Magazine published her essay, “Desultory Thoughts Upon the Utility Encouraging a Degree of Self-Complacency, Especially in Female Bosoms” in 1784. In 1792, she began to write a column in Massachusetts Magazine and chose the pen name Mr. Gleaner. She also began another column for the same magazine as Constantia. For Thomas Paine’s The Federal Orrery, she wrote a series of five articles for the The Reaper column.  Paine edited and rewrote some of her material and she vowed to never write another column again. The themes of her writings included Universalism and the political and social issues of the day. She also wrote plays and continued to write poetry published in the Boston Weekly Magazine writing as Honoria Martesia.

In the colonies, tutors or their mothers instructed women from wealthy families. A small minority attended the few schools in existence which were private schools for the wealthy. As early as 1784, Murray publicly urged that girls get an education.

In a 1790 essay, “On the Equality of the Sexes,” she asserted that men and women were equally capable of acquiring knowledge but differences in their education “resulted in inadequate instruction of women.” Murray felt she received an inferior education compared to her brother and learned on her own by reading. This experience taught her that women and men should have the same access to educational opportunities.

Murray’s legacy as a writer and educator continues to this day, In 1974, Alice Rossi included “On the Equality of the Sexes,” in The Feminist Papers ensuring Judith Sargent Stevens Murray’s place in women’s history.

Additional Bibliography:

Smith, Bonnie Hurd, Mingling Souls Upon Paper: An Eighteenth-century Love Story) Hurd Smith Communications, 2008.

Diamant, Lincoln, editor. Revolutionary Women in the War for American Independence, A One Volume Revised Edition of Elizabeth Ellet’s 1848 Landmark Series. Westport Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1998.

Greenberg, Judith E. and McKeever, Helen Cary. Journal of a Revolutionary War Woman. New York: Franklin Watts, 1996.

Micklos, John. The Brave Women and Children of the American Revolution. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc, 2009

Freeman, Land M., North, Louise V and Wedge, Janet M. In the Words of Women: the Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765-1799. Landam, Md: Lexington Books, 2011.

Redmond, Shirley Raye. Patriots in Petticoats, Heroines of the American Revolution.New York: Random House, 2004

 

Quilling

American Colonial Crafts – Quilling with paper

 

MATERIALS:

Strips of quilling paper 1/8 inches to ½ inches in width

Scissors

Clear glue

Pencil or Q-tip

Colored paper or card stock

Light-weight paper in various colors (optional)

Ruler (optional)

 

PROJECT:

  1. Purchase quilling paper which comes in a variety of colors. Or using a ruler, measure and mark anywhere 1/8” to ½” at intervals along the length of the lightweight paper. Draw a long line along the marks. Cut and repeat the steps until you have enough strips for a design.
  2. Roll the end of the paper on to the end of a pencil or Q-tip. When you reach the end, loosen a little of the coil so you can easily roll it off the pencil. Add a little glue and finish rolling the coil to keep it from loosening.
  3. Roll the coils tightly and/or loosely depending on your design. Look at the sample above.
  4. Arrange the coils on the colored paper or card stock creating a design: flowers, butterflies, dragonflies, abstract designs. Quilled paper designs can also be framed (without glass) and hung in any room or classroom.
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Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Mercy Otis Warren

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Mercy Otis Warren
Mercy Otis Warren

Mercy Otis Warren

Mercy Otis Warren was born in 1728 in Barnstable, Massachusetts into a wealthy family. She was home-schooled especially in the domestic arts but listened in on her brothers’ academic lessons. She absorbed a lot because her brother, James, encouraged her to pursue her interest in history and writing..

In 1764, she married James Warren, a merchant, farmer and a member of the Massachusetts State Legislature. Through her husband she came to know the leaders of the American Revolution and he, too, encouraged her to pursue her literary interests.

Mercy frequently wrote letters to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson about issues involving the colonies and the Warren’s home eventually became a hub for  revolutionaries and intellectuals. Boston revolutionaries formed the Committees of Correspondence after a series of protest meetings were held in Mercy’s parlor. She also corresponded with her friend, Abigail Adams, whose husband became the second President of the United Sates. Later their friendship cooled when Mercy was critical of John Adams in her three-volume history of the United States.

She used the pseudonym Fidelia for the poems and dramas she wrote many of which were anti-British. In Model Celebration, mermaids and other sea creatures enjoy sipping British rea during the Boston Tea Party of 1773. In Blockheads, Mercy made fun of the British King George. Other plays included the Adulateur (1772), The Defeat and The Group (1775). In 1790, she published yet another volume of poems and plays.

The British did not know who wrote these works otherwise they would have arrested and hanged Mercy for treason. Warren was also noted for the three-volume History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution published in 1805, the first narrative of the conflict between America and Britain.

In addition to her writing pursuits and political interests, Mercy ran a farm in her husband’s absence and raised five sons.

Bibliography:

Diamant, Lincoln, editor. Revolutionary Women in the War for American Independence, A One Volume Revised Edition of Elizabeth Ellet’s 1848 Landmark Series. Westport Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1998.

Greenberg, Judith E. and McKeever, Helen Cary. Journal of a Revolutionary War Woman. New York: Franklin Watts, 1996.

Micklos, John. The Brave Women and Children of the American Revolution. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc, 2009

Freeman, Land M., North, Louise V and Wedge, Janet M. In the Words of Women: the Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765-1799. Landam, Md: Lexington Books, 2011.

Redmond, Shirley Raye. Patriots in Petticoats, Heroines of the American Revolution.

www.britannica.com/biography/Mercy-Otis-Warren

POMANDER BALLS

MATERIALS:

Ripe orange, or lemon or lime

Jar o whole cloves

Toothpick

Dish of powdered cinnamon (optional)

Netting

Ribbon

String

Scissors

 

PROJECT:

  1. With a toothpick, poke holes in the skin of the fruit keeping them close together.
    (Sometimes this step isn’t necessary. Try it without the toothpick first.)
  2. Push a clove into each hole covering the entire fruit with cloves. Place the cloves as tightly or as far apart as you choose but cover the entire fruit with cloves.
  3. Optional: Roll the fruit in the cinnamon. Cover with cloves. Place it in a pretty dish and place the dish in a cool dark place for two to three weeks so that the fruit dries out.
  4. Optional: Place the fruit in a square of netting. Gather up the ends of the netting and tie a ribbon around it. Leave enough extra ribbon to make a loop. Or, skip the netting and simply tie ribbon around the pomander ball.
  5. Hang the pomander ball or place it on a pretty dish. It will scent the entire room.

 

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Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Phillis Wheatley

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley

Born and kidnapped in Senegal, Phillis Wheatley arrived in Boston, Massachusetts in 1761.John and Susanna Wheatley, a Quaker couple, bought her to work as a domestic and named her Phillis. Instead, they raised Phillis like their own daughter. Phillis didn’t know English when she came into their household but Susanna tutored her. Phillis mastered the English language and was able to read the Bible at a young age, compelling the Wheatleys to hire teachers. Her tutors encouraged her to continue her English studies and study theology and the Greek and Latin classics.

When she was eleven, she began to correspond with a Mohegan Indian, the Reverend Samson Occum, agreeing with his criticism of slave-holding Christian ministers and other related issues.

Phillis was the first African-American to publish a book of poems, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in 1767. Her writing was so powerful that Governor Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and the Reverend Samuel Cooper questioned the poems were really written by her.

Phillis’ poems condemned slavery and celebrated freedom and liberty. She wrote a poem entitled To His Excellency General Washington in which she praised him and urged to carry on the fight for America’s freedom. The poem impressed George Washington and he invited Phillis to have tea with him at his army camp.

After the publication of her book of poems, Thomas Wheatley took her on a trip to England where the public treated her like a literary celebrity. In France, Voltaire praised her “very good English verse.”

In 1773, John and Susanna Wheatley gave Phillis her freedom.  After the Wheatleys died, Phillis  married John Peters in 1778, a free black Bostonian. They had three children two of whom died in childbirth. Peters later abandoned her. Impoverished, she and her third child died of complications following childbirth. her final manuscript has never been found.

Bibliography:

Diamant, Lincoln, editor. Revolutionary Women in the War for American Independence, A One Volume Revised Edition of Elizabeth Ellet’s 1848 Landmark Series. Westport Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1998.

Greenberg, Judith E. and McKeever, Helen Cary. Journal of a Revolutionary War Woman. New York: Franklin Watts, 1996.

Micklos, John. The Brave Women and Children of the American Revolution. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc, 2009

Freeman, Land M., North, Louise V and Wedge, Janet M. In the Words of Women: the Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765-1799. Landam, Md: Lexington Books, 2011.

Redmond, Shirley Raye. Patriots in Petticoats, Heroines of the American Revolution.

New York: Random House, 2004

www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p12.html

www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h19.html

 

Do the craft below!

Red, White and Blue Banner

Fourth of July Banner

Fourth of July Banner

 

Ages: 5 – 12 years                            Time: ½ hour

MATERIALS:

White felt 36” x 36”                          Red Fun Foam

Blue Fun Foam                                  white Fun Foam

sharp tool like an awl                        ¼” red, white and blue ribbon

Measure and cut white felt to 14” x 20”. Place felt horizontally. Fold a 1” seam at the top of the felt and iron. Fold a second 1” seam and iron again. Glue the second seam with tacky glue. You will pass the dowel rod through this loop. This piece of felt should now measure 14” x 16”.

Trace the large star pattern and cut one large star out of the white Fun Foam. Cut 13 smaller stars out of the white Fun Foam using the smaller star pattern.

Trace and cut a large circle out of the blue Fun Foam. Glue the large star in the center. Arrange the smaller stars around the circle. Make sure that they all face the same way. Lay aside. Measure and cut 7 stripes ¾” x 16” out of the red Fun Foam.

Arrange the stripes on the banner so that there is a ¾” stripe of white felt showing between them. (Refer to the diagram provided.) Glue the stripes down and trim if necessary.

Glue the blue circle with the stars in the center of the red and white stripes.

At the bottom of the banner, poke holes every 1” with a sharp tool like an awl.  (Small children should let adults do this for them.) Insert the ribbon in the holes, alternating the colors. Pull the ribbon through and tie a knot in the back.

Trim the dowel rod to 18 x 20”. Cut a piece of string to a length suitable for hanging. Tie the string to each end of the dowel rod.

Remember Phillis Wheatley and her love of liberty!

 

 

 

 

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