Boston Freedom Trail Highlights Revolutionary Women

The 90-minute walking tour highlights figures frequently left out of the main narrative, including First Lady Abigail Adams, political writer and satirist Mercy Otis Warren, and Phillis Wheatley, the first published African American female poet. The tour covers approximately one mile of the historic trail. One of the tour's central figures, Abigail Adams, famously urged her husband John to "Remember the Ladies" in a 1776 letter as he and other leaders were framing the laws for the new nation. She argued for the protection of women from the "unlimited power" of husbands. Mercy Otis Warren, a playwright and poet, was another influential voice, using satire to criticize British authority in the years leading up to the war. Her home was a frequent meeting place for revolutionaries, and she later wrote one of the first histories of the American Revolution. Phillis Wheatley's story is also a focus; captured in West Africa and enslaved in Boston, she learned to read and write, publishing her first poem in 1767 and a full volume of poetry in 1773. Wheatley, who was a vocal supporter of independence, gained international fame and was freed from slavery. This initiative is part of a broader effort in the city to surface the stories of its female trailblazers. The Boston Women's Heritage Trail, established in 1989 by a group of local schoolteachers and students, offers multiple walking tours across various neighborhoods dedicated to women's history.