Anne Bradstreet was born in Northampton, England, in 1612. At the age of sixteen, she was married to Simon Bradstreet and in 1630 they boarded the Arabella, “one of the first ships to bring Puritans to New England in hopes of setting up plantation colonies.” as stated in an Anne Bradstreet Biography. One very important thing about Anne Bradstreet was the fact that she was a writer, and I realize that doesn’t sound odd to any of you but this was long before equal rights for men and women. Bring up my question, “What was it like as the first female writer in the new world?”
Anne’s father, Thomas Dudley, saw Anne as the apple of his eye. As stated in the Norton Anthology on page 187, “She received an education superior to that of most young women of the time.” As a young girl, she would write poems for her father. As an adult she wrote them only for her family and close friends. Her brother-in-law, John Woodbridge, copied her work and had it published, without her permission in England. The first volume published was “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts." This was the only volume published in her lifetime, it did well in England.
In the the Puritan community, women having ideas and acquiring knowledge was frowned upon. In the same biography, it was stated that “Anne Bradstreet was especially fond of poetry, which she had begun to write herself; her works were kept private though, as it was frowned upon for women to pursue intellectual enlightenment, let alone create and air their views and opinions.” One of her close friends, Anne Hutchinson made the mistake of “airing her views publicly” and was banished from her community. Being a Puritan is was seen to play the traditional role of a wife and mother, “One of the most interesting aspects of her work is the context in which she wrote; an atmosphere where the search for knowledge was frowned upon as being against God's will, and where women were relegated to traditional roles,” stated in the biography.
As stated from an article written by Ramon Gonsalez, “John Woodbridge, her brother-in-law, had to write: ‘By a Gentle Women in Those Parts’ on the title page to assure readers that Bradstreet did not neglect her duties as a Puritan woman in order to write, by making it clear that she found time for her poetry by giving up sleep and using what little leisure time she had.” The anger is present in her work, “The Prologue”
“Who says my hand a needle better fits;
A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on female wits.
If what I do prove well, it won't advance;
They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance.”
Charlotte Gordon wrote a book about this subject and discussed it on NPR
At the age of sixty, Anne Bradstreet died after a difficult battle of illness. Most of her popularity sprouted after her death. She was the beginning of something new, rights for women. Along with many other respected women, she opened doors that she would have never thought.
Anne Bradstreet. Nina Baym, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Seventh Edition: Volume A. New York: Norton, 2007. 187-188.
