Today
we honor the first female writer in the British North American
colonies to be published. (September 16 was chosen because, although
we are not sure of Anne Bradstreet's birthday, she died on this date
in 1672.)
Bradstreet's
poems were popular in both the Old and New World.
Bradstreet
was born in England, and she was well-educated (we have to add here
“for a woman”). She was married at age 16 and traveled to the
Massachusetts Bay Colony with a group of Puritan emigrants, which
included her husband and her parents, in 1630.
Bradstreet's
family helped found the city of Boston and Harvard University.
Bradstreet
unfortunately had poor health, but she managed to have eight
children, move six times in order to further her husband's dreams,
and still write a volume of poetry called The Tenth Muse
Lately Sprung Up in America. This book was published in London in
1650.
In
1997, a gate in Harvard was named the Bradstreet Gate for Anne.
Also
on this date:
This
holiday begins this evening at sundown and ends the evening of
Tuesday, September 18.
Anne Bradstreet was not just the first female writer to be published in America, she is the first poet, period, of any gender.
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