Happy Memorial Day!

In honor of this important day for our country, I wanted to share some photos and fun facts about three important women featured at The Boston Women Memorial in Boston which I visited over the weekend.

The statues would certainly bring a smile to the face of my friend Dr. Lynette Long who started a group called EVE to help increase the visibility of women.  And, Anna Belle should definitely schedule this into her upcoming Northeast tour which you’ll be hearing a lot more about shortly on our blog.

The monument features three women who made herstory in Massachusetts.

The first is Lucy Stone, a prominent American abolitionist and suffragist.  Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree and the first recorded American woman to retain her own last name after marriage.

On side of her statue features a quote from the Women’s Journal, which she founded:

The legal right for woman to record her opinion wherever opinions count is the tool for whose ownership we ask.

The second is a Phillis Wheatley who sadly I had never heard of until this weekend (thankfully my son had learned about her while studying slavery in fourth grade). Phillis only lived to be 31 (although my son reminded me that we learned on the Duck Tour that people in that era had an average life expectancy of 35). Here’s the words from one side of her statue:

Born in West Africa and sold as a slave from the ship Phillis in Colonial Boston she was a literary prodigy whose 1773 volume Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral was the first book published by an African writer in America.

And all in that short life span – can you say WOW!

And the third of course is Abagail Adams, a favorite in the state of Massachusetts – and the one political name that I have heard while touring historical venues throughout the East Coast. While touring Mt. Vernon, home of the Washingtons, where the tour guide told us that when Martha became the first, first lady, Abagail wrote her to the effect that George would be the country’s head, and Martha the country’s heart. While touring Independence Hall in Philadelphia where stories about Abagail’s letter to her husband were an important part of reporting of the revolutionary war and helped to shape our early government.

Abagail also has the said some of the most incredibly notable words ever uttered:

Great necessities call out great virtues.

Next time you are up in Massachusetts, make sure to check out this monument.  Further information can be found here.