Mary Cooper records five years as a Long Island farmwife, 1768-1773 (PDF)
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Eliza Lucas Pinckney records her management of South Carolina plantations, 1749-1762 (PDF)
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Mary Jemison recalls her capture and adoption by Seneca Indians, 1758-1780s
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Elizabeth Ashbridge recounts her path to becoming a Quaker, 1730s
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Jane Turell pens a spiritual journey through grief, 1720s-1735 (PDF)
"I find it requires great care, attention and activity to attend properly to a Carolina Estate, tho' but a moderate one, to do ones duty and make it turn to account . . ."
Eliza Pinckney, 1760
"It has beene a tiresom day to me. It is now bed time and I have not had won minuts rest today."
Mary Cooper, 1768
"[My husband] heard I was turned Quaker; at which he stamped, and said, 'I had rather have heard she was dead . . .'"
Elizabeth Ashbridge, 1730s
"Thrice in my Womb I've found the pleasing Strife, In the first Struggles of my Infants Life: But O how soo •
Lesson Plan
The Life of Ona Judge
This lesson plan will teach students about the life of Ona Judge and the historical context of her enslavement and escape to freedom.
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Lesson Plan
Sally Hemings
By dividing Sally Hemings' life into four major stages, students will encounter the difficult choices forced upon enslaved women by an evil institution.
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Biography
Mary Musgrove
Mary Musgrove become a negotiator between English and Native American communities and played an important role in the development of Colonial Georgia.
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Biography
Betsy Ross
Considered essential to the American Revolution, Betsy Ross is credited with sewing the first United States flag.
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Lesson Plan
Pocahontas
Students will learn about Pocahontas’ life and explore the relationship between legend and history when it comes to the infamous incident in which John Smith claimed she saved him.
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Lesson Plan
Defying British Rule
Students will investigate women's roles in the American Rev
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Considered one of the earliest American feminists, Anne Hutchinson was a spiritual leader in colonial Massachusetts who challenged male authority—and, indirectly, acceptable gender roles—by preaching to both women and men and by questioning Puritan teachings about salvation.
Anne Marbury Hutchinson was born in England, the daughter of dissident minister Francis Marbury and Bridget Dryden. She grew up in Alford in Lincolnshire, where her father taught her scripture. In 1612, she married William Hutchinson, a merchant and member of a prominent family. From 1614 to 1630, she gave birth to more than a dozen children.
Although, like many women of her era, she had no formal education, Hutchinson was an avid reader and thinker. She was inspired by Reverend John Cotton, vicar at the nearby Lincolnshire parish. After Cotton joined other religious dissidents in North America, Hutchinson’s family migrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Hutchinson was forty-three years old when she arrived in Boston in 1634. Trained as a midwife, Hutchinson developed strong ties to local women and beg