Women In History ~ ​1776 – Power, Pen, and Petticoats: 
​Abigail and Mercy Spill the Tea! ​​

Program Introduction

Ken Burns chose the words of Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren to bring life to the nation's formative years in his lauded “American Revolution”.

These two founding foremothers were friends, then frenemies, then friends again, but never wavered in their support for the new nation.

Abigail made the radical choice of selecting a husband who deemed her his equal...in the home and in the White House. And when they were separated for years at a time, she shored him up through her insightful, loving letters in which she admonished him to “Remember the Ladies”!

If Mercy had been a man, she would be in the history books!  But, she had to write anonymously for most of her life.  An ardent foe of slavery, she wrote "The origin of all power is in the people."  She dared critique the U.S. Constitution, resulting in many of the ideas that went into our Bill of Rights.  She went on to write the first history of the American Revolution.  
 
Be a part of the shared experience of two who lived the beginning.​

Featured Figures