hayley

Not only is this a post about Mercy Warren (i.e. how she was a woman we can all be proud of because she wrote a landmark history book), it’s a post about other historical women, e.g. Deborah Sampson and Molly Pitcher – whose lives and contributions were recorded because of Mercy Warren. Awesome!

Anna Belle, thank you very much indeed for this wonderful post.

Today, when I was exploring Google gadgets to get me a gadget for my desktop on women’s history, there was, of course, none. All searches for ‘women’ led to nude pictures, porn, playboy images, etc. Anyone up to create a Google gadget based on Annabelle’s and other’s work, so people can get to read about, say, one extraordinary woman a day?

Anna Belle, thank you for letting us know about Warren. It’s a very interesting story.

The two valid sources you cite weren’t even originally published in America. The Life of George Washington is a biography of a person, not a history of nation.

That said, I think you’d be happier with a history journal than with this series.

In your article you state the following:

“The third, I submit, was the very first history of America ever penned, which set our story in stone and started a trajectory of inclusion that continues to this day. That history was written by Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814), known to many as “The Conscience of the American Revolution.” Yes, you read that right: the very first history of our great nation, which informed several generations of school children of our beginning, was authored by a woman.”

This is factually incorrect. Mary Otis Warren’s work is noted as being an important history of the era, but it certainly was not the first. Warren’s work was published in 1805. please note these other works:

William Gordon, D.D.

The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America: including an Account of the late War; and of the thirteen Colonies from their Origin to that Period. 4 vols. London, 1788; American ed., 3 vols., 1789; 2d Am. ed. 3 vols., 1794; 3d Am. ed. 3 vols., 1801.

John Marshall

Life of George Washington. 5 vols. and atlas. Philadelphia, 1804–07; London, 1804–07; Philadelphia, 1805–07; rev. ed. 2 vols. and atlas, Philadelphia, 1832, 1836, 1840. French, 5 vols., Paris, 1805; German, 4 vols., Hamburg, 1805–06; Dutch, 10 vols., Haarlem, 1805–09.

David Ramsay, M.D.

The History of the American Revolution. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1789; London, 1791; new ed., London, 1793; Dublin, 1793, 1795; Trenton, N. J., 1811; Lexington, Ky., 1815; Dutch, 4 vols., Campen, 1792–94; German, 4 vols. 1794–95.

Besides having an issue with your facts, I would also take issue with your assumption that Warren’s work formed the third “pillar” “upon which all our subsequent progress is based”. Warren’s work is most certainly an important piece, but the statement that it’s effect on the course of history in the U.S is equal to that of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution is unjustified.