Anna Green Winslow, diarist, schoolgirl, and self-proclaimed "daughter of liberty," lived and wrote in Boston between 1771 and 1773, keeping a letter-diary that is one of the few records of the daily life of a young girl during the prerevolutionary period. Her accounts of education, social events, reading, and daily work provide a thorough picture of Boston life for a young girl of her time and useful documentation of women's writing, education, and socialization just prior to the American Revolution.

Anna Green Winslow came from a long line of prestigious, upper-class British colonists. Her relatives included Mayflower passengers, and many were established in Boston society and members of the congregation of Old South Church. Her father, Joshua Winslow, who was baptized at Old South Church on 23 January 1727, served in the British army. In 1745 he was appointed commissary-general of the British forces in Nova Scotia. The records he kept there indicate...