Women at Old South Meeting House in February

Old South Meeting House’s “Middays at the Meeting House” talks resume on Thursdays in February with presentations on eighteenth-century women.

February 6
Sarah Prince: A Life in Meditations and Letters
Sarah Prince Gill (1728-1771, shown here courtesy of R.I.S.D.), daughter of influential Old South Meeting-House minister Thomas Prince, kept a spiritual diary for twenty-one years and maintained a friendship and correspondence with her “dearest Friend” Esther Edwards Burr, daughter of famed theologian Jonathan Edwards. Historian and Wheelock professor Laurie Crumpacker will discuss what the journal and letters reveal about women’s roles in the Great Awakening, the astonishing spiritual revival that swept the colony.

February 13
Abigail Adams: Life, Love, and Letters
Abigail Adams claimed to write with an “untutored stile,” and asked her husband John to destroy her letters. He saved them anyway, giving posterity a unique look into the life and times of this iconic wife, mother, and Patriot. Living history interpreter Patricia Bridgman uses the couple’s correspondence to bring Abigail to life, from the Adamses’ courtship in 1764, through the tumultuous years of the American Revolution, to 1778 on the eve of her husband and son’s voyage to France. Bridgman’s Mrs. Adams is serious about such issues as women’s education and rights, but she’s saucy, too, and enjoys poking gentle fun at those who deserve it, including Mr. Adams!

February 20
Petticoats at the Revolution
Join us to hear a remarkable story of tea and Revolution from the woman who rode through life with Paul Revere. Actor and storyteller Joan Gatturna portrays Rachel Revere sharing the story of the Boston Tea Party, the Midnight Ride, and the Siege of Boston through the eyes of a woman who kept the home fires burning while her husband fanned the flames of rebellion. Her characterization of Rachel Revere was developed with assistance from the staff of the Paul Revere House.

February 27
“Lett No Country Grants to be Laid Upon our Lands”
The lives and perspectives of Native women are often left out of histories of colonial New England. In 1723, Eastern Pequot leader Mary Momoho submitted a petition to the Connecticut General Assembly, demanding tribal recognition and the preservation of her community’s reservation in Stonington. In this illustrated lecture, anthropologist and UMass Boston professor Amy Den Ouden will explore what we can learn about indigenous women’s daily lives from 18th-century land petitions, and will draw parallels between these historical realities and contemporary issues in indigenous communities involving land, voice, and power.

Each session starts at 12:15 P.M. and lasts for about an hour. They are free to Old South members, $1-6 for others.