Hannah Crocker

Background

Hannah Crocker was born on June 27, 1752 in Boston, the granddaughter of Cotton Mather, and the seventh child of Rev. Samuel and Hannah (Hutchinson) Mather.

Career

Her entire life apparently was spent in the vicinity of Boston.

Her earlier years were necessarily much taken up with domestic duties, for she was the mother of ten children, and it was not until some time after her husband’s death in 1797 that any of her publications appeared.

She was among the first women in this country to be conspicuously interested in Masonry, making a study of the history of the institution, and herself being matron of a lodge of women founded on its principles.

In 1810 she wrote some letters in the form of a correspondence between “Enquirer” and “A. P. Americana, ” in advocacy of Masonry, which at the request of Rev. Thaddeus M. Harris she published in 1815 under the title, Series of Letters on Free Masonry, by a Lady of Boston.

The following year she published The School of Reform, or Seaman’s Safe Pilot, to the Cape of Good Hope, a little homily addressed to sailors with some use of nautical terms, warning against intemperance and vice.

In 1818 appeared her Observations on the Real Rights of Women, with Their Appropriate Duties, Agreeable to Scripture, Reason and Common Sense. In it she admits that owing to Eve’s having first yielded to temptation, woman was put under subjection to man, though she naively remarks that Adam was to blame for letting his mate wander about the Garden unattended; but she argues that with the Christian dispensation woman was restored to an equality with man.

Moral and physical differences in the sexes allot to each appropriate duties, and woman should not trespass upon the peculiar sphere of man, but both have equal powers of mind and ability to judge what is true and right, and recognizing this fact should cooperate in mutual respect and fidelity.

Mrs. Crocker inherited most of the Mather library and family portraits and transferred them to Isaiah Thomas for the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.

At her death she was buried in the Mather tomb, Copp’s Hill, Boston.

Achievements

• Her most important contribution was the 1818 book Observations on the Real Rights of Women in which she argued that education was crucial to the advancement of women. This included a courageous defense of Mary Wollstonecraft, who, in Boston society, was viewed as a libertine. Crocker's work was the first book by an American author on the rights of women.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Reminiscences and Traditions of Boston

    (Published for the first time, Hannah Mather Crocker's ear...)

  • Observations on the Real Rights of Women and Other Writings (Legacies of Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers)

    ( Following in the path of her distinguished Puritan fore...)

  • Observations on the real rights of women: with their appropriate duties, agreeable to Scripture, reason and common sense.

    ( Title: Observations on the real rights of women : with ...)

  • book

  • A series of letters on free masonry
  • The school of reform, or, Seaman's safe pilot to the Cape of Good Hope

Views

Quotations: “If women could even read and badly write their names, it was thought enough for them, who by some were esteemed as only mere domestic animals. ”

Personality

As was to be expected in one of the Mather family, she had a vigorous mind, a firm will, and a keen interest in moral and social questions.

Connections

On April 13, 1779, she became the wife of Joseph Crocker, son of Rev. Josiah Crocker of Taunton, Massachusetts, a graduate of Plarvard, and a captain in the Revolutionary War.

Father:

Samuel Mather

Mother:

Hannah (Hutchinson) Mather

husband:

Joseph Crocker