Annotated Bibliography: Remember the Ladies

Butterfield, L.H., editor. Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 1: pp. 369-371. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Pres, 1963-1993.

In March 1776 Abigail Adams wrote a letter to her husband, John Adams, who was serving as the Massachusetts representative to the Continental Congress placed in Philadelphia. Throughout the letter she wrote about freedom and to remember the ladies. Abigail Adams was a very insightful and bold woman, with this she went on to write that men are natural tyrants who only see women as a vassal to their sex. She wants the men in the congress to acknowledge that women also have opinions, and that the women were ready to create a rebellion if they would be bound by any laws which would either give them no voice nor representation.

Murray, Judith Sargent. "On the Equality of the Sexes." Letter. 1790. MS. Massachusetts Magazine, Gloucester, Massachusetts.

In 1790 Judith Sargent Murray's essay about gender equality was published in Massachusetts Magazine. Throughout the essay, she spoke about the way men were treated as superior to women. As if their minds and experiences were more of worth than a woman's mind and experiences. Murray then goes on to say that in nature, God had created equal minds; both of worth and intelligence. Because of the superiority men seem to claim, women do not reach their full potential; they go on to dwell in sexual desires, unhappiness, and bitterness. Based on the fact that women are the other gender, we invest in a female mind with superior strength as an equivalent to the bodily powers of the men.

These two sources support and extend each other. In Abigail Adam's letter she wants the men to see the women as more than a addition to complete their sex, and in Murray's essay she explains why women should be acknowledged. Adams said that women were only treated as "the vassals of your Sex" but Murray writes that the female sex has "souls are by nature equal to yours" meaning that women are created in the same worth as men are. Men should not denounce a woman based on the simple fact that men believe women are put on earth to serve as their other half who have zero worth because they were not given the same chance at superiority as a young man would receive. Both of these letters are useful in our study of the Early Republic because we will see the beginnings of the gender equality movement set forward by the women. This issue will arise throughout the history of our country during the time period, it creates another historical struggle for the developing country. It gives us another example of what problems the president at that time would have to deal with during his term(s). But they are both limited, Adams did not include what plenty of the other women thought nor did Murray explain in depth what the men thought about the female gender. Despite the intellectual worth each of these sources display, there are still other opinions out there besides the popular belief both of these woman seem to agree with on this issue of equality.