Anna Green Winslow
Anna Green Winslow was a young woman who moved from Nova Scotia to Boston in 1771 at the age of eleven to live with her aunt, Sarah Deming, who trained her in traditional skills deemed important for young ladies of the time. Between 1771 and 1773, Winslow kept a diary that offers a unique glimpse into the daily life of young women during the American Revolution. Her writings reflect her surprise at Boston's rebellious environment, especially coming from the loyalist background of Nova Scotia, though she maintained a largely ambivalent view towards the political turmoil around her.
Winslow's diary includes detailed accounts of her education in penmanship, sewing, dancing, and her leisure activities, such as reading literature and attending sermons. Notably, she recorded her observations on public punishments and the impact of political sentiment within sermons, though she was eventually advised by her aunt to refrain from such detailed notes. The diary also contains letters addressed to her mother. Winslow's writing ended in 1773, and she later passed away from tuberculosis at the young age of twenty-one, leaving behind a valuable historical record of a young woman's experience during a transformative period in American history.
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Anna Green Winslow
- Born: November 29, 1759
- Birthplace: Nova Scotia, Canada
- Died: July 19, 1780
Biography
Anna Green Winslow moved from Nova Scotia to Boston in 1771 when she was eleven years old. Her parents, natives of Boston, were returning her to live with her aunt so that she could be trained in the skills deemed useful to young women: sewing, dancing, handwriting, and social skills. Winslow’s aunt, Sarah Deming, took in schoolgirls as boarders and helped train them to become “ladies.” From 1771 to 1773, at her aunt’s suggestion, Winslow kept a diary that provides an insightful and informative look into the everyday lives of young women during the time of the American Revolution.
Used to Nova Scotia, which was loyal to the crown, Winslow seems to have found Boston’s rebellious attitudes surprising, although she seems largely ambivalent about politics in her diary. Winslow’s father, Joshua Winslow, was a supply officer in the British army and would remain loyal to the crown during the revolution. He would eventually reunite with his family in 1773 in Massachusetts as war began to seem more and more inevitable. By 1775, he left the colonies for England, where he would remain, joined by his wife in 1783.
The diary largely records the day-to-day events in Winslow’s life, and there is indication that she frequently showed it to her aunt and at other times her parents. She discusses how she would practice penmanship, sewing, and dancing for her aunt, and would also spend time reading the Bible, visiting relatives, or helping her aunt and uncle with their personal sewing and mending. She would read whatever could be brought to her, including John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
Of particular interest in the diary are Winslow’s detailed notes on sermons. Her aunt would eventually advise against keeping such notes, presumably due to the amount of political discontent contained within the sermons. Winslow would also go on to describe the public punishment of criminals at the whipping post. Parts of the diary, as well, seem to be composed of letters to her mother that were copied into her diary.
Winslow stopped keeping her diary in 1773, and so her thoughts about the Revolution itself are unknown; she died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-one.