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November 17, 1637

The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony banishes leader Anne Hutchinson, convicted of heresy, sedition, and “traducing the ministers”. Hutchinson would eventually follow fellow exile Roger Williams to the religious haven of Rhode Island, where she and several followers would settle on Aquidneck Island, near present-day Portsmouth.

A former Puritan, Hutchinson led a group of believers called Antinomians, who believed established moral law to be of no consequence, since salvation depended on faith in Christ alone. Her crime seemed to be hosting weekly women’s meetings in her Boston home. As many as sixty women at a time would attend, using the meetings to discuss the weekly sermon and study the Scriptures. The women would compare and contrast the Colony’s “Covenant of Works” with Hutchinson’s profession “Covenant of Grace”. Hutchinson would assert that those blessed by God’s grace were not bound by human law, were in no need of guidance and intervention by the established church, and could determine their own religious practice for themselves. Moreover, she claimed to have a direct communion with divine inspiration, in the form of the Holy Ghost.

Hutchinson’s professions flew directly in the face of Governor John Winthrop and the Puritan ministerial hierarchy, by essentially asserting that she did not need spiritual intercession from the Colony ministers. Moreover, her behavior opposed the will of the ministers, who discouraged women to consider the spiritual discourse without the guidance – or, rather, dictation – of their husbands.

Perhaps more than the threat she imposed toward the theological and economic bases of the Colony, as a strong, nimble-minded woman Hutchinson challenged the male dominated Puritan Society, which traditionally relegated women to roles of servitude and silence. (Buchanan, p. 43)

After Aquidneck Island, Hutchinson and her followers eventually moved to Pelham Bay in New York. There, in 1643, Hutchinson was scalped during a Wappinger Indian raid.

June 10, 1650

A collection of poetry, called “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America”, is published by Anne Bradstreet. She becomes the first American female author to be published, and is often regarded as the first published poet – male or female – in America. Her brother-in-law Reverend John Woodbridge, had carried her manuscript of poetry to London, where it was published. A second collection, called “Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning”, was released posthumously in America.

Born in 1612 in Northampton, England, Anne Dudley sailed on the Arbella in 1630 with her father Thomas Dudley and family to America with the Massachusetts Bay Company. In 1628, she married Simon Bradstreet. In New England, she befriended Anne Hutchinson, but never followed her disruptive ways. Instead, she lived largely under the shadows of her husband and father, except for the publication of her poetry. In 17^th century New England, any woman who tried to display her intellectual gifts to the larger community risked ridicule or exile by the Colony’s male hierarchy.

A highly educated woman, Bradstreet had been tutored in Greek, Latin, French, Hebrew, and English. Through her literary career, she regularly wrote about politics, history, theology, and medicine. Though much of her poetry focused on her Puritan world of God, husband, and home, occasionally Bradstreet would write a verse on the virtue of women. Such are the lines from In Honor of that High and Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth of Happy Memory.

Now say, have women worth, or have they none,

Or had they some, but with our Queen is’t gone?

Nay, masculines, you have taxed us long

But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong

Let such as say our sex is void of reason,

Know ‘tis slander now, but once was treason.

Anne Bradstreet died in 1672. She may have been buried next to her husband in Salem, Massachusetts, but the precise location of the grave remains a mystery. Long forgotten by history, her poetry has been rediscovered by feminists in the 20^th century.

April 13, 1657

The Society of Friends – also known as the Quakers – establishes a foothold in the New World by gathering for the first time in America in East Sandwich, Massachusetts. The Quakers would go on to build meeting houses in Flushing, New York (1694), and in Newport, Rhode Island (1699). For the next 350 years, the Quakers would stand on the battlefront for social justice in America, including the fight for women’s rights.

George Fox had founded the Society of Friends in England in 1647. He and his followers believed that each man, woman, and child had a spark of divinity – an Inner Light – within. Thus, the Friends believed that no outside clerics, denominations, or doctrines were needed to guide the individual toward divinity. Quakers advocated for harmony, fairness, charity, and justice with every human being. From the outset, the Quakers marched at the forefront of the three century movement for women’s suffrage – as well as many other causes of social justice. Recognizing the Inner Light in women as well as men, the Society of Friends encouraged full participation of women, as church members, citizens, and ministers.

In 1657, eleven Quakers sailed from Bridlington, England about the tiny vessel called the Woodhouse, considered far too small to safely cross the Atlantic Ocean. Robert Fowler, a novice seaman, apparently cast off without compass or charts. Reportedly relying solely on divine guidance, the Woodhouse first landed at a creek at the west end of Long Island, near the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam. Leaving five Friends at Long Island, the little ship continued through the pass known as Hell’s Gate, arriving in Newport, Rhode Island. From there, some of the friends continued on to East Sandwich.

Many of the great champions of the women’s movement were Quakers, including Abby Foster Kelley, who became one of the first women to refuse to pay taxes on her farm, claiming “taxation without representation”. Quaker Lucretia Mott helped Elizabeth Cady Stanton plan the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention. Quaker Susan B. Anthony voted illegally in 1872 to protest her lack of enfranchisement, and the voting amendment that was finally passed in 1919 had her name on it. Alice Paul, who led the protest in front of the White House which led to the passage of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, was also born a Quaker.

June 1, 1660

Mary Barrett Dyer, a Quaker and a friend of Anne Hutchinson, is hanged from an elm tree at Boston Common. As an excommunicated and banished former resident of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, she had returned to New England for a third time to repeal the anti-Quakers that Governor John Endicott’s administration had imposed upon the community. “Tried” on May 31, Mary Dyer was marched by soldiers to the gallows, where she hung – unrepentant – until she was dead.

Word of her violent death soon reached King Charles II, who sent a missive to Governor Endicott, or-dering the persecution of the Society of Friends to end.

A bride in 1633 London at the age of eighteen, Mary Barrett Dyer traveled to Massachusetts Bay Colony with her husband, William Dyer seeking religious tolerance – something they never found. Dyer marched out of the colony in solidarity with Anne Hutchinson, when she was excommunicated on March 22, 1638. Mary and William Dyer were excommunicated and banished in turn. The couple followed Hutchinson to Roger Williams’ religious haven of Rhode Island, where William Dyer became an important official in the new colony. During a trip to England in 1652, Dyer met Quaker founder George Fox, who “convinced” her to became a “Child of the Light”. Soon, she would return to New England, eventually forming the nucleus of the Newport Quaker Colony. As a Quaker, Dyer believed that anyone could contact God directly through the Holy Spirit, which directly violated the authority of the Puritan ministers.

Hutchinson, a midwife, reportedly delivered Dyer’s only daughter – stillborn from birth defects. Hutchinson and Dyer buried the infant in secret to keep the incident away from prying eyes. Among the superstitious Puritans, any abnormality at birth was considered a mark of the devil. Hutchinson wished to protect Dyer from any persecution. The burial was later discovered by the Colony authorities, who used the incident to fortify their case against Dyer.

Between 1656 and 1660, Dyer returned to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to fight against the unjust laws, to be imprisoned three times. The third time – in October of 1659 – she actually stood on the gallows facing execution, but gained a last minute reprieve. Colony officials hoped Dyer would be dissuaded from returning once more, but she was not.

A statue of Mary Dyer now stands by the State House on the South Lawn at Boston Common. Inscribed are the words Dyer spoke shortly before she was executed: “My life is not accepted, neither availeth me, in comparison with the lives and liberty of the Truth and Servants of the Living God.” Thus, Mary Dyer died as the first American woman martyred in the cause of civil liberties.

June 10, 1692

The first of more than twenty individuals accused of witchcraft is hanged at Gallows Hill in Salem, Massachusetts. Bridget Bishop is executed for the “sundry acts of witchcraft” for which she pled innocent. She had been arrested on April 10 and, with the whole town apparently against her, was charged, tried, and executed within eight days.

Bishop’s greatest crime seemed to be a flamboyant lifestyle. She owned a tavern on Ipswitch Road. She reportedly wore colorful, showy clothes, and hosted late-night parties. She drank, quarreled openly with her husband, and altogether seemed to shun the accepted Puritan lifestyle for a woman. In court, she was accused of practicing witchcraft on young women, and her sister’s husband claimed “she sat up all night conversing with the Devil.” Others presented more “spectral evidence” of Bishop’s intercessions with the Devil. But of course, the only tangible evidence against Bishop was that she behaved differently. Bishop flatly denied the charges, showing no remorse or fear through her execution.

It is thought Bishop had been born sometime between 1632 and 1637. She had been married three times, the third time to lumber worker Edward Bishop. She reportedly had no children. She was a member in good standing at John Hale’s Church in Beverly, north of Salem. In fact, she reportedly had never even been to Salem.

Although Bishop’s execution caused some officials to soberly re-evaluate the witch-hunt, the delay was not enough. Governor William Phips traveled to Boston to consult with Massachusetts Bay Colony ministers to determine what should be done with the rest of the accused. Eventually, Phips would ban the submission of spectral evidence, and by October of 1692 the Salem Witch Trial’s ended. Unfortunately, the end came too late for many. Eighteen more women and men would be hung, one would be pressed to death, and several more would die in prison before the witch hunts in Salem would end.

In the male dominated Puritan Society, anything that empowered women to shed the meek and mild servitude role was perceived as a threat to the hierarchy. Certainly the controversial practice of witchcraft encouraged independence, strength, and insight in women. Reportedly, the Craft enabled women to call upon the kinds of natural forces and supernatural powers that threatened the very core of the Puritan belief system.

Westwood writes that Bridget Bishop “was independent, attractive, and aggressive. In another time, she would have been praised for these qualities; but, in 1692, she was executed.”

August 22, 1735

The sister-in-law of statesman Benjamin Franklin becomes the first female newspaper editor in the United States. Ann Smith Franklin takes over operation of the Newport Mercury upon the death of her son, James Franklin, Jr. in 1762. She would edit the paper until her death on April 16, 1763.

Ann Smith had married James Franklin Sr. in 1723, when James was operating The New-England Courant out of Boston. It was at the Courant that Benjamin Franklin had assumed his printer’s apprenticeship with his brother James, nine years his senior. The Courant enjoyed a controversial run in Boston, often challenging the established church of the famed minister Cotton Mathers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the end the Courant was sharply censored by the Colony’s General Court for publishing supposedly “wicked” articles, for which James was jailed. In 1726, James, Sr. and Ann moved to the freer atmosphere of Newport, Rhode Island, where they bought the first printing press in Colony, and published its first newspaper, The Rhode Island Gazette.

James Sr. died in 1735, leaving the widow Ann at age 39 to support four children: James, Jr., Abiah, Mary, and Elizabeth (a fifth child had died). Having been steeped in the printing business with James, Ann took over her husband’s printing business in Newport. She took on the role many colonial period wives assumed: the place of deputy husband, carrying on the business when the husband could no longer. In time, she proved her self a competent printer in her own right, and achieved the economic self-reliance that eluded so many women in that time period.

Ann’s son, James Jr., took over the printing business when he returned from his own apprenticeship in 1748. He started the Newport Mercury in 1758, but then he died in 1762. Once again, Ann was compelled to take over the family business, but this time including the role of editor for the Newport Mercury.

Over the years, Ann Franklin published many notable documents. She would revive the Rhode Island Almanack and became official printer to the colony. In 1745, she undertook her largest commission, printing five hundred copies of the folio edition of the Acts and Laws of Rhode Island. An original marbled copy remains with Princeton University, as does a copy of the Rhode Island Colony’s charter granted by Charles II, entitled The Charter Granted by His Majesty King Charles II to the Governor and Company of the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence-Plantations, in New-England in America.

October 14, 1741

In a letter to her father Colonel George Lucas, nineteen year old Eliza Lucas reports of her success in cultivating a small crop of indigo bushes from seeds he had sent her from the West Indies. Eliza Lucas also bids him to send her more seeds from the indigofera tinctoria, so she can increase production of the crop. Within five years, this legume would generate one of the most coveted blue dyes in England and the American Colonies.

After beginning to experiment with the seeds in 1740, Lucas would quickly encourage her South Carolina neighbors to grow the bushy plant as well. By 1746 indigo would become the South Carolina’s most coveted export crop after rice, greatly enhancing the economy of the colony. Thus, Lucas became one of the most important agriculturists in the American Colonies.

Eliza Lucas was born in Antigua on December 28, 1722. Her father, Lt. Colonel George Lucas served in the British Army on British-ruled Antigua. Educated in England, Eliza studied French and music, but held a particular fascination with botany, even at an early age.

The Lucas family moved to South Carolina in 1737, where George acquired three plantations. He was recalled to Antigua to serve as Royal Governor, leaving young Eliza in charge of the plantations. George trusted Eliza to be a shrewd and capable manager, avoiding sloth and idleness, living neither a luxurious nor extravagant lifestyle. At a time when it was thought that hard work would spoil a woman for her marriage, Eliza seemed to relish her industriousness and sharp business acumen. Although the plantation owned slaves, Eliza operated a school for slaves at a time when it was thought it was wrong to educate slaves, for fear they would only want their freedom.

Already experimenting with crops such as flax, hemp, and silk culture, Eliza’s initial research with indigo did not fair well. Early attempts withered due to frost and pests. However, Eliza persisted, eventually succeeding. Largely due to her efforts, South Carolina increased exportation of indigo from five thousand pounds in 1746, to more than one million pounds by 1775. The legume was particularly popular in European & American textile industries; in the Colonies, indigo was used to dye the uniforms of the Colonial Army. After the Revolution, competition from India – then a British Colony – doomed indigo planting in South Carolina.

At age 22, Eliza Lucas married Charles Pinckney, a judge whose work called him away from home often. Eliza ran his plantation as well as their mansion in Charleston. She eventually gave birth to a daughter and three sons, one of whom died in infancy. Charles would succumb to malaria in 1758. Eliza Lucas Pinckney died in 1793. As an indication of her importance to the colonies, George Washington served as one of the pall bearers at her funeral.

July 26, 1775

The Continental Post Office for the “United Colonies” appoints Mary Katherine Goddard as postmaster of Baltimore, Maryland. Goddard thus becomes the first woman in the United States to hold such an office. She would serve until 1789 when she was removed from the post, apparently mostly for political reasons. Residents of Baltimore petitioned Postmaster General Samuel Osgood to keep Goddard at her post, but to no avail.

Goddard also has the distinction of being one of the first female publishers in United States History. After her father died in 1762, she moved to Providence, Rhode Island to run a print shop with her brother William. In 1766, they began publishing the Providence Gazette, as well as a book called the West’s Almanac.

Goddard was born on June 16, 1738 in Groton or New London, Connecticut. In 1768, she moved to Philadelphia, where she helped William publish the Pennsylvania Chronicle. In 1773, she and her brother opened a third print shop in Baltimore, from which she published a newspaper called The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser from 1774 to 1884. Among the nation’s best newspapers, it was the only one serving Baltimore at the time. A three-column account of the Battle of Bunker Hill appeared in the Advertiser less than a month after it happened. It was considered a major scoop at the time. Goddard would also be the first printer in the country to offer the Declaration of Independence with all the signer’s names listed. Goddard died in Baltimore on August 12, 1816, in Baltimore.

The first woman appointed postmaster after the adoption of the United States Constitution was Sarah De Crow, of Hertford, South Carolina. Reportedly she tried to resign her post several times, due to the small compensation she received for the work. DeCrow was appointed on September 27, 1792, serving until 1795.

March 31, 1776

Abigail Adams writes her famous “Remember the Ladies” letter to her husband John, while he serves on the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Written as a private letter with no intention for it to be made public, Abigail’s words nevertheless would become a rally cry in the struggle for civil rights for women ever since.

While John Adams was working to craft the laws that would govern the new nation, Abigail submitted – in a style laced with humor – ideas she thought important for the founding fathers to bear in mind.

Be more generous and favorable to (the Ladies) than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember, all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. (McConnell, p. 25)

Unwittingly, Abigail Adams foretold the revolution which would reach full strength in 140 years.

Abigail Smith was born on November 11, 1744, in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Her father, William Smith, was a minister who provided his daughter with the most complete educational opportunities available to women in the pre-Revolutionary period. She read not only the Bible, but Shakespeare, the English Classics and some French, and kept up to date with the newspapers of the day. She also learned to write quite proficiently, as evidenced by the volumes of letter published by her grandson Charles Francis in the 19^th century.

She married John Adams on October 25, 1764, giving birth to four children: Abigail, John Quincy, Charles, and Thomas. She was with John during the Revolution, while he served as a Congressional diplomat to France, while he served as Vice-President (1789-1797), and finally as President.

Although clearly Abigail Adams could not have expected women’s suffrage to arrive in 18^th century America, there seems no doubt that the thought she conveyed to her husband were seriously considered and heart felt. She was among the most influential of First Ladies and, as such, was a substantial voice for change. John Adam’s Secretary of State Thomas Pickering charged that the second president was “under the sovereignty of his wife” (Gottlieb, 160). Abigail understood the asymmetry of female subordination was wrong, and she was among the first in America to describe on paper the inequity of women’s status in the patriarchy. As the emerging nation struggled with its independence from Britain, and as its collective conscience wrestled with the injustice of the institution of slavery, considerations toward the rights of women naturally began to take root as well. Abigail Adam’s letters – to friends and relatives as well as her husband – spanned her liftime, through the Revolution, her career as First Lady, and her later life. Her letters have provided the fullest account of the tumultuous period between 1765 and 1815, left by any American woman.

The wife of the second President of the United States, Abigail Adams died at the age of 74, on October 28, 1818, seven years before her son John Quincy Adams would become the seventh President of the United States.

June 28, 1778

A woman steps onto the field of the Battle at Monmouth, at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, during the Revolutionary War. She carries pitchers of water for her husband William Hays, and his comrades in arms. For her efforts General George Washington would issue her a warrant as a noncommissioned officer. She is Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, later hailed by the colonial army as Sergeant Molly. To history and folklore, she would be known as “Molly Pitcher.”

In addition to bringing water on that hot Virginia day, McCauley also tended to the wounded, reportedly carrying one crippled Continental soldier from the battlefield. In addition, when her artilleryman husband fell wounded, she reportedly picked up the rammer staff for the cannon, and joined in the combat.

Mary Ludwig was born October 13, 1754. The daughter of New Jersey dairy farmer, she worked as a domestic servant at age 13. Ludwig married New Jersey barber William Hays at age 13 as well.

During the Revolutionary War, William Hays enlisted as a gunner in the Pennsylvania Artillery. Molly joined her husband as a camp follower during Philadelphia Campaign (1777-1778) in New Jersey. They wintered together at Valley Forge.

After the war, she and her husband settled in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. After Hays died, she married another war vet named John McCauley. The Pennsylvania Legislature finally awarded a pension in 1822.

Molly Pitcher died on January 22, 1832. A mark on her grave noting her exemplary service would be placed in 1876 at Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the hundred year anniversary of the war. Subsequently, Molly Pitcher has become the nickname for the many women who tended to the beleaguered and embattled soldiers who fought in the Revolution.

April 30, 1789

Martha Dandridge Custis Washington becomes the first First Lady with the inauguration of her husband, General George Washington. Martha Dandridge Custis had married Colonel George Washington on January 6, 1759. With the inauguration, Martha would be known as Lady Washington, as the term First Lady did not come into use until well into the 19^th century.

Martha Dandridge was born on June 2, 1731, the eldest daughter of Virginia planted John Dandridge and Frances Jones. She married Daniel Parke Custis in 1749, when she was 18. Custis died in 1757, leaving Martha rich with control of one third of the extensive Custis estate for her lifetime. She managed the remainder of the Custis estate for her two surviving children, John Parke Custis and Martha “Patsy” Parke Custis.

The subject of slave ownership has been a historic controversy surrounding George and Martha Washington. Like that of numerous plantation owners, the Custis estate included slaves, which Martha had moved to Mount Vernon upon her marriage. One of the slaves, Ann Dandridge, was actually reputed to be Martha’s half-sister, and was close to Martha’s age. Dandridge, reportedly, had a son by John Parke Custis. Eventually, George Washington would come to see the repugnance of slavery, and eventually would free all of his slaves.

Nevertheless, Martha Washington became the first in a tradition of First Ladies. She also was the first woman to be commemorated on a postage stamp, and the first to have a naval ship named after her.