Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 in Northampton, England, to Thomas and Dorothy Dudley. She married Simon Bradstreet, an assistant in the Massachusetts Bay Company and graduate of Cambridge University in 1628 when she was 16 years old and he was 25. The Bradstreets moved with Anne’s parents to Ipswich, Massachusetts, in the New World, sailing on the Arabella, one of the first ships to bring Puritans to America. The journey proved to be very taxing on all participants, but Bradstreet, along with her husband and family, survived the voyage to their new home. There, Simon actively participated in the infant government that he had helped construct, serving as Chief Administrator.

Bradstreet’s mother was a well-educated woman and probably taught her daughter to embrace education, especially in history, literature, and languages. Bradstreet read as much as she could, possibly to take her mind momentarily away from the tough life she and her family led in the colonies. Her marriage was successful and full of love, despite the fact that her husband frequently traveled to neighboring colonies because of his position in the local government. Although Bradstreet was often sick, she bore eight healthy children, all of which she read to and taught.

Bradstreet was one of the first poets to write in America and about American life. She intended for her poetry to be private and exist unpublished as a mere entertainment and small passion in her life. However, her brother-in-law, John Woodbridge, took her writing and had it published in England in 1650 under the title The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America without her knowledge or consent. It was seen as presumptuous in the seventeenth century for women to pursue intellectual renown; Bradstreet’s dear friend, Anne Hutchinson, was banished from their colony for publicly voicing her opinion. For those reasons, Bradstreet wrote poetry as tangible, literary illustrations of her devotion to God and her husband, her love for her family, and her life in Massachusetts.

While her early poetry was primarily of interest from a historical perspective, Bradstreet’s mature poems are intriguing because of her situation. The simple fact that she, as a woman, had a deep appreciation and love for reading and writing poetry is distinctive; that her poetry was published and esteemed is also astounding. She was certainly a progressive scholar at the time, and some critics have hailed her as an original American feminist.