Through Colonial Women’s Eyes at Historic Deerfield

Historic Deerfield’s Summer Lecture Series for this year is titled “Through Her Eyes, In Her Words: The Lives and Writings of Three Colonial Women.” It will feature three authors describing the surviving writing of women from colonial New England, one lecture on each of the remaining Thursdays in this month.

11 July: “One Colonial Woman’s World: The Life and Writings of Mehetabel Chandler Coit,” presented by Michelle Marchetti Coughlin. I heard Coughlin speak at the New England Historical Genealogical Society in February. Her book One Colonial Woman’s World: The Life and Writings of Mehetabel Chandler Coit explores what seems to be Coit’s commonplace book, along with other documents. Coit was born in Roxbury in 1673 and moved to Connecticut, where she died in 1758.

18 July: “Writing Her Way to Salvation: the Role of the Pen in the Life of Elizabeth Porter Phelps,” presented by Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle. Phelps kept a diary and letters over many years in Hadley, providing Carlisle with the material for her 2007 book, Earthbound and Heavenbent: Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Life at Forty Acres (1747-1817).

25 July: “Re-introducing Phillis Wheatley: A Genius in Bondage,” presented by Vincent Carretta. His recent biography of Wheatley is a fine feat of reconstructing a life both celebrated and shadowed.