Mistress Bradstreet (44 page)

30. Ulrich,
Good Wives,
157.
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31. Ibid. These three stories are all told by Ulrich in
Good Wives.
She also provides specific examples of childhood disasters as well as a broad overview of the dangers children faced in colonial life. See especially
146-63
.
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32. Quoted in ibid., 146. This interpretation is also indebted to Ulrich’s analysis.
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33. Bradstreet, “In Reference to Her Children,” in
Works,
232-33
.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Enemies Within

1. Francis Bremer writes, “Some . . . were talking about the latest rumor, that a governor-general might be appointed by the king and lead a military force to suppress the colony.” Bremer,
Winthrop,
229.
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2. Morison,
Builders,
97.
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3. Morgan,
Puritan Dilemma,
116.
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4. Bremer,
Winthrop,
234.
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5. Anne was not alone. Most Puritans cherished their relationship to England; letters between the Old and New Worlds were their lifeline to civilization and to all that they had lost, including, of course, their childhood homes, their families, and all the comforts they had once known. Even the formidably idealistic minister Thomas Shepard could not stop “lamenting the loss” of England. McGiffert,
God’s Plot,
63.
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6.
Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay,
ed. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, 5 vols. (1853). Quoted in Bremer,
Winthrop,
246. Bremer writes that “the General Court under the leadership of Dudley and Ludlow passed a series of sumptuary regulations. No tobacco was to be smoked in inns or public places, nor in an individual’s own home. No person in the future was to buy or make any apparel with lace or silver or gold embroidery. Clothes with excessive fashionable slashes (more than one slash in a sleeve, for instance) were prohibited.” Bremer,
Winthrop,
246.
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7. For a more complete description of this episode in Williams’s life, see Morgan,
Puritan Dilemma,
126.
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8. Ibid., 129. Later in life, Williams would write words that summed up his position concerning the condition of humanity in general: “Abstract yourselfe with a holy violence from the Dung heape of this Earth.” Ibid., 130.
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9. Quoted in ibid., 125.
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10. Bremer recounts this story in more detail in Bremer,
Winthrop,
251.
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11. Morgan,
Puritan Dilemma,
134.
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12. Quoted in Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fathers,
361.
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13. Hutchinson had borne fourteen children; three had died.
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In one of his many later attacks on Hutchinson and her husband, Winthrop described Mr. Hutchinson as “a man of a very mild temper and weak parts, wholly guided by his wife,” but this statement cannot be taken at face value, as it was simply another method of undermining Hutchinson’s standing in the community. Morgan,
Puritan Dilemma,
134.

14. Ibid.
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15. Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fathers,
361.
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16. John Cotton and Zechariah Symmes, quoted in ibid.
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17. Quoted in ibid., 364.
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18.
Plymouth Colony Records,
quoted in Deetz and Deetz,
Times of Their Lives,
153.
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19. Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fathers,
364.
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20. Quoted in ibid.
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21. The words
gossip
and
gossiping
were originally positive ones, derived from an eleventh-century term,
godsib,
that meant “godparent.” But by the late sixteenth century, circumstances had changed and
gossip
had come to mean “a woman’s female friends invited to be present at a birth” as well as a woman “who delights in idle talk; a newsmonger, a tattler.” The latter definition had emerged from increased male anxiety about unfettered female talk. Any indication of a woman’s overstepping her bounds, such as an “ungoverned tongue” or, for that matter, her husband’s allowing her to get out of hand was judged with great severity. Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fathers,
223; Kamensky,
Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England,
chap. 1. Kamensky writes, “By reporting her husband’s shortcomings to her ‘Gossips,’ a ‘nimble-tongued Wife’ effectively ‘published’ his failure for ‘all the town’ to hear. And ‘publishing,’ as every Englishwoman knew, was men’s business. Men, cultural norms held, were speakers—‘publishers,’ in period parlance. Obedient women were listeners” (21). See chapters 1 and 3 for a more complete discussion of the ramifications of a female’s unfettered speech.
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22. Kamensky,
Governing the Tongue,
21.
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23. For a more complete discussion of the ideas of the public and private roles of women in the seventeenth century and Anne Hutchinson’s complicated relationship to these roles, see Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fathers,
380-85.
Also, Eve LaPlante writes, “[A]s a woman she [Hutchinson] had no public role. . . . As a woman she had no voice or vote” (
American Jezebel,
12)
.
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24. Morgan,
Puritan Dilemma,
137.
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25. Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fathers,
362.
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CHAPTER TWELVE:
Ipswich

1. Although no one recorded exactly when the Dudleys and Bradstreets began their journey, November 1635 seems the most likely time, as it was the last month before the snows of winter would strike and it was before Anne had had her second baby.
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2. Morison,
Builders,
223.
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3. Quoted in White,
Anne Bradstreet,
130.
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4. Letter from Mary Dudley to Mrs. John Winthrop, quoted in ibid., 132.
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5. Quoted in Cronon,
Changes in the Land,
49-50
.
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6. Bradstreet, “Contemplations,” in
Works,
205, lines
23, 16, 17, 19, 24, 25
.
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7. Ibid., lines
10-11
.
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8. Quoted in Morison,
Builders,
223-24
.
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9. Later in life, she would give thanks for the privacy of the long night hours in a poem to Simon. See “Another,” in
Works,
227, line 2.
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10. Morison,
Builders,
218. This catechism was more properly known as
The Westminster Shorter Catechism.
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11. “The New England Primer,” in McMichael,
Concise Anthology of American Literature,
54-55
.
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12. Leighton,
Early American Gardens,
127.
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13. Ibid.,
232, 235-37, 243-44, 246-47, 275-76, 287-88, 299, 301-2, 308
.
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14. One contemporary expert wrote, “We absolutely forbid its entrance” into salads, citing evidence that eating garlic was a punishment for those who had “commided the horrid’st Crimes.” Ibid.,
307, 267-68, 321, 336-38, 343-44, 376-77, 384, 385-86
.
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15. Ibid.,
124-25
.
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16. “M. W.,”
The Queen’s Closet Opened. Incomparable Secrets in Physick, Chirugery, Preserving, Candying, and Cookery
(London: Nathaniel Brook, 1656), quoted in Leighton,
Early American Gardens,
133.
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17. Leighton,
Early American Gardens,
87-88
.
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18. Ibid., 101.
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19. Ibid., 107.
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20. Bradstreet, “Meditation 35,” in
Works,
278.
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21.
Ulrich,
Good Wives,
51.
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22. White,
Anne Bradstreet,
131.
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23. Later in life Anne would describe the “carping tongues” of those who thought “my hand a needle better fits” than “a poet’s pen,” in Bradstreet, “The Prologue,” in
Works,
16, lines
27-29
.
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Such Things as Belong to Women

1. Edward Johnson, quoted in Morison,
Builders,
120.
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2. Thomas Weld, quoted in Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fathers,
370.
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3. This idea comes from Mary Beth Norton’s
Founding Mothers and Fathers.
See especially
222-39
. Norton writes that it was “only birthing rooms” that “provided women with environments that consistently excluded men” (223).
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4. Bradstreet, “A Letter to Her Husband,” in
Works,
226, line 14; “Another,” in ibid., 227, lines
11-13
.
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5. Bradstreet, “Another,” in
Works,
227, line 2.
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6. Woodbridge, “Epistle to the Reader,” in
Works,
3.
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7. Quoted in Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fathers,
368.
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8. Ibid.,
368, 365
.
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9. Ibid., 369.
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10. Edward Johnson, quoted in ibid., 369.
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11. Quoted in Morison,
Builders,
239.
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12. Ward wrote, “It is said, that Men ought to have Liberty of their Conscience, and that it is Persecution to debar them of it: I can rather stand amazed than reply to this: it is an astonishment to think that the braines of men should be parboyl’d in such impious ignorance.” Ibid., 238.
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13. Anne wrote about this struggle between the spirit and the desires of the flesh in her prose reflections as well as her poetry. The most famous example is “The Flesh and the Spirit,” where Spirit describes how often she has allowed herself to be “a slave” to Flesh’s “flattering shows.” In
Works,
215-218
, lines
52, 51
.
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14. Quoted in Morison,
Builders,
220-21, 219
.
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15. Ibid., 218.
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16. Nathaniel Ward, “Introductory Verse” in Bradstreet,
Works,
4.
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17. Ward’s
Body of Liberties
takes a step forward for the rights of women, protecting them from the abuse of their husbands. See Morison,
Builders,
234. In addition to his
Simple Cobbler of Aggawam,
his rant against women and fashion contained an implicit plea for the education of women. In other words, according to Ward, those women who chased from one silly fashion to another did indeed have only “squirrel” brains. But he raised the hope that there were others who refrained from such frivolous behavior and who therefore had more substantial mental faculties.
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18. Quoted in Morgan,
Puritan Dilemma,
143.
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19. Quoted in Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fathers,
128. In 1648, Massachusetts Bay passed a law that assigned the death penalty for rebellious children. See ibid., 104.
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20. Quoted in ibid., 74.
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21. Quoted in Eve LaPlante,
American Jezebel,
50.
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22. Quoted in Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fathers,
374.
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23. Quoted in Morgan,
Puritan Dilemma,
149.
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24. Ibid.
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25. For the perception that women could not be “public” individuals and that, therefore, the Hutchinson trial upset the colony’s notions about “private” and “public” proceedings, see Norton,
Founding Mothers and Fathers,
especially chapter 8.
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26. Quoted in Morgan,
Puritan Dilemma,
149.
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27. Ibid., 150.
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