Saturday, August 29, 1:00 p.m.
The Mount Independence Coalition is pleased to be bringing Nancy Rubin Stuart to the Mount to be this year's J. Robert Maguire lecturer. Ms. Stuart, the author of The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation, will talk about her new book and the role of women's voices in the founding of the United States.
The sister of firebrand James “the Patriot” Otis, who first declared that “taxation without representation is tyranny,” the highly educated Mercy Otis Warren was the mother of five sons and the wife of James Warren, Speaker of the Massachusetts House and paymaster general of the Continental Army. In 1775 patriotic Mrs. Warren served as her husband’s private secretary at the headquarters of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety and the Provincial Congress, where she heard news about the Revolution that few men—and virtually no women—enjoyed.
Mercy Otis Warren was a close friend of both John and Abigail Adams; she and Abigail shared their fears, comforted each other in their husbands’ absences, exchanged theories about child-rearing, and even ran a small importing business together. John Adams, who was impressed with Mrs. Warren’s acumen and literary abilities, praised her “real genius” and encouraged her to write satirical plays, poems, and a history of the American Revolution.
Nancy Rubin Stuart is an award-winning author specializing in women’s and social history. The author of five books, she has appeared on national television and NPR and has written for the New York Times and other publications.
Praise for Ms. Stuart and The Muse of the Revolution:
“Stuart has artfully set the story in the context of the Revolution . . . . A lively introduction to the great Mercy Otis Warren.”—Edith Gelles, Wilson Quarterly
“Stuart reminds us that the U.S. Constitution—notably the Bill of Rights—carries Mercy Otis Warren’s fingerprints as much if not more than those of most constitutional delegates. . . . This wonderfully researched and readable book has done an excellent job of giving another view of what it took to make this country.” —Library Journal, starred review
“Should be required reading in American history classes . . . . Warren was one of the great scribes of our American Revolutionary era.” —Larry and Saralee Woods, American Spirit
“When John Adams observed that ‘History is not the province of the ladies,’ he had in mind his former protégé, the accomplished and prolific Mercy Otis Warren. Here Nancy Rubin Stuart restores Mrs. Warren to vibrant life, offering up a vivid picture of colonial America and, incidentally, proving John Adams twice wrong.” —Pulitzer Prize–winner Stacy Schiff, author of A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America