Anne Bradstreet ~ Puritan

Anne Bradstreet ~ Puritan • Anne Bradstreet was a “daddy’s girl” • Being the apple of her father’s eye, he made sure she received an education superior to that of most young women of the time. • When she was only 16, she married Simon Bradstreet who had just graduated from Cambridge University. • A year after their marriage, her husband was appointed to assist in the preparations of the Massachusetts Bay Company. • The Bradstreets and Anne’s family (The Dudley’s) sailed with Winthrop’s fleet on The Arbella.

Anne Bradstreet ~ Puritan • Anne Fun Facts!! • Anne was never very strong physically • She had rheumatic fever as a child and as a result, suffered recurrent periods of severe fatigue throughout her life • Nevertheless, she risked death by childbirth eight times! • Unknown to her, her brother-in-law, John Woodbridge, took a manuscript of her poetry to England and had it published. • It was called The Tenth Muse and was the first published volume of poems written by a resident in the New World. It was widely read. • Bradstreet was an ambitious poet whose imagination was firmly grounded in English religious, political, and cultural history. • She was a firm believer in “the Puritan experiment in America”