Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 0, History

Scholars have long prized Mercy Otis Warren as a subject of historical study because of her extensive correspondence, which shows how elite women expressed their support of the American Revolution. In this thesis, I show that her letters reveal something more fundamental than her patriotic impulse – they show her fear of losing her elite position. I demonstrate this by applying the insights of the history of emotions to the letters Mercy Otis Warren wrote between 1769 and 1780. In these letters, Mercy Otis Warren expressed the emotions of “spirit” and “sentiment” towards her family members, her community of Plymouth, and the Revolutionary cause sweeping over New England. But she expressed herself most passionately about her family's elite status and cultural power. Her letters reveal that Mercy was a product of her time, her class, and her family. In today's terms, we would call her “entitled.” Methodologically, this thesis draws on insights from social history, gender history, and the history of emotions. I place Mercy's correspondence (roughly sixty letters written and received in the period under study) into the context of her relationships with family, friends, and community. She was passionate in her letters because she and her correspondents were facing the destruction of their privileged lives. I argue that understanding Mercy Otis Warren's emotions is critical to understanding her determination to maintain her elite status (chapter 2), her unquestioning acceptance of the gender expectations of a woman in her position (chapter 3), her firm support of the Revolutionary cause (chapter 4), and her attempts to shape the nation's memory of the Revolution afterwards (chapter 5). Historians have implicitly argued that Mercy challenged the gender expectations of her day, but I find that she did not. She simply followed the lead of her male kin, who were extremely well educated and politically powerful.

Committee: Ruth Wallis Herndon Ph.D. (Advisor); Andrew Schocket Ph.D. (Committee Member); Christine Eisel (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Gender; History; Womens Studies

BA, Oberlin College, 2012, History

Among the first generation of published authors in the early American republic, Mercy Otis Warren and Hannah Adams have unfortunately been pushed to the margins of historical discourse. As individuals and female historians, their lives are fascinating and dynamic, and their role in the development of a space for the female voice in the era's intellectual discourse is critical. Thus, Adams and Warren can be treated as case studies to comment on the process by which American women's writing entered the public sphere during this era, the gendered backlash that occurred in response to this trend, as well as women's own efforts to maintain their right to participate in a public, intellectual realm. By examining Adams and Warren's lives and experiences as female historians, this study seeks to recapture and celebrate their significance to the study of women in American history.

Committee: Carol Lasser (Advisor) Subjects: American History; American Literature; Gender; Gender Studies; History; Womens Studies