Tag Archives: George Washington

Oct25

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Annis Boudinot Stockton

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Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Annis Boudinot Stockton
Annis Boudinot Stockton

Annis Boudinot Stockton

Annis Boudinot Stockton was born in Darby, Pennsylvania between 1733 and  1736 to a wealthy family, descendants of French Huguenots who came to America in 1685 after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. She was the first in her family born in North America. The family later moved to the Princeton area of New Jersey where she learned to read and write unlike many women of her generation and interacted with the intellectuals of the town.

She married Richard Stockton in 1757 and they lived in Morven, the Stockton estate. As a mother of six children, she became an advocate for education after she read “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792).

Richard Stockton was a lawyer and a representative for the College of New Jersey and the American colonies. In June 1776 he sided with the patriots who elected him to the First Continental Congress. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

During the Revolutionary War, British General Cornwallis marched through New Jersey. Annis and her family left their home in Princeton and found refuge in the home of friends in Monmouth County. The British army set up headquarters at Morven, burning the Stockton library and furniture and trashing the estate but they soon found Annis and her family and imprisoned Richard.  His imprisonment left him weak and sick. Annis nursed him until his death in February 1781.

Annis B. Stockton was primarily a poet. Her poems celebrated the Battle of Bunker Hill, the fall of General Richard Montgomery at Quebec and the “deeds” of George Washington. Washington was effusive in his gratitude of her praise. She also wrote about other events during the Revolution, Congress, marriage, and friendship. She wrote her poems in a neoclassical style and compiled into a copybook.

 

ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY:

http://www.jerseyhistory.org/findingaid.php?aid=1221

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

 

MATERIALS:

2 sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 inch white paper like bond paper or drawing paper

1 sheet of 8 ½ x 11 inch construction paper any color but preferably a light color

Black felt-tip marker

Pencil/eraser

Ruler

PROJECT:

  • Fold the sheets of white drawing or bond paper in half along the width.
  • Fold the construction paper in half along the width. This will be the cover of the book.
  • Open up all the folded pages. Place the cover sheet face down and draw a thin line of glue along the center fold.
  • Place one of the white sheets over the cover sheet aligning the center folds and press. Do the same for this sheet and draw a thin line of glue along its center fold.
  • Place the second sheet of drawing or bond paper on top of the first one. Align the center folds and press. Allow the glue to dry
  • Fold the papers so that the book now measures 5 ½ x 18 ½ inches. Place the cover on the outside. Cut and paste the clip art sites listed below into your browser to help you design the cover and the inside pages. Like Mercy Otis Warren and other colonial women, write in your diary every day recording the important and everyday events of your life.
  • (Optional) Free Clip Art:
VARIATION: Use the previous colonial crafts projects to enhance your country diary. Decorate the cover with a quill paper design and try writing in it with the homemade pen and ink.
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Sep20

Revolutionary Women As Second Class Citizens: Phillis Wheatley

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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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