Gift Basket home > Gift
Basket Info Center > Independence Day
July 4th is the time to celebrate our Founding
Mothers
Click
here to see our selection of Independence Day gifts.
With the fourth of July right around the corner, this is an important
time to consider the men and women who helped make this country
what it is. A lot of attention has been paid to the Founding Fathers
of the United States, but what about the women who could be called
the Founding Mothers?
Born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, America's second First Lady was
Abigail Adams. Despite never receiving a formal education, Abigail
Adams and her sisters were taught by their mother to read and write.
Abigail Adams was an educated woman for her day and her early exposure
to literature and the written word would form her views on women's
rights and government, views that would become very important when
her husband attended the Continental Congress.
While Abigail Adams is known for requesting that her husband and
his compatriots remember the right of women in their lawmaking,
one of her greatest contributions to history was in the letters
she wrote that left a valuable eyewitness account of the Revolutionary
War. Abigail Adams watched the Battle of Bunker Hill and the burning
of Charlestown and witnessed the birth of the American nation, both
in its liberation from British rule and its fledgling steps towards
democracy. Abigail Adam's clear eye and sharp mind provided historians
with a valuable view of the beginning of the Untied States of America,
a view that was different from anything anyone else of the time
could have provided.
Another woman who deserves the title of Founding Mother was Mercy
Otis Warren. She felt it was her duty to participate in the American
Revolution as a patriot and later on, recorded the events in a book,
History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution.
Like Abigail Adams, she learned to read and write and had an intense
interest in politics. In a time when women were considered lesser
citizens, she educated herself and became a playwright in 1772,
writing a satire called The Adulateur, a pointed skewering of the
nature of the British governors. With this and her other plays,
she urged the colonists towards independence.
Mercy Otis Warren set an important precedent for women writers.
While there had been other women who wrote, their writing was of
a more personal nature, meant for themselves, while Warren wrote
professional nonfiction and sold it. Later in life, Mercy Otis Warren
focused on educational reform, seeking equal opportunities for girls
who wished to be educated. While her efforts at the time seemed
hopeless, her legacy was carried on with the opening of a seminary
school for girls a decade after her death and her works were well
remembered during the women's movement much later.
The Founding Mothers of America came through the Revolutionary
War, and they knew their battle didn't end there. Both Abigail Adams
and Mercy Otis Warren were active after the end of the war and their
efforts continue to be seen today, even in history books where they
don't warrant a footnote.
|
