"Female Patriots, Address'd to the Daughters of Liberty in America" (1768)

Source: "The Female Patriots." Moore, Milcah Martha. 1768.

Commentary

If men had grown accustomed to their unusual freedoms in the colonies, women had also, and one of those freedoms was making their feelings and opinions known. The "female patriots" mentioned in this poem vowed their willingness to boycott English goods like stamped paper or tea if they could help the cause of liberty. When this poem first appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1768, its then-anonymous author hoped it would contribute "to the entertainment or reformation of your male readers." The poem's author was Milcah Martha Moore, a Philadelphia Quaker whose moral and instructive poems were published, along with this one, in England and Ireland as well as in America. As this lively poem suggests, her moral lessons were not devoid of humor and good sense...