Below is a list of printed sources written by, about, or for women in the colonial and early national United States. They are arranged by era and then alphabetically by title. There is also a short list of women’s periodicals that appeared in the early United States at the end. Most of the titles listed that are out of copyright are hyperlinked to a free online version through Google Books, HathiTrust, or Internet Archive. For help locating any of these sources, please consult our Finding Published Sources page. For works on cookery, check our list of Early American Cookbooks.

Colonial  

Adams Family Correspondence, eds. L. H. Butterfield, et. al., 15 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963 -)

The Antinomian Controversy, 1636 - 1638: A Documentary History, ed. David D. Hall (Middleton, 1968)

America’s Working Women: A Documentary History, 1600 to the Present, eds. Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Perlman Gordon (New York, 1995)

The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, ed. Elaine F. Crane, 3 vols. (Boston, 1991)

Early American Women: A Documentary History, 1600–1900, ed. Nancy Woloch, 3rd ed. (New York, 2013)

Friendship in Death: in Twenty Letters from the Dead to the Living. To which are Added, Letters Moral and Entertaining…, Elizabeth Rowe (Edinburgh, 1745)

Extracts from the Journal of Elizabeth Drinker, from 1759 to 1807, ed. Henry D. Biddle (Philadelphia, 1889)

The Female Patriot, No. 1. Addressed to the Tea-Drinking Ladies of New-York (New York, 1770)

The Indian Peoples of Eastern America: A Documentary History of the Sexes, ed. James Axtell (New York, 1981)

Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women’s Narratives, ed. William L. Andrews (Madison, 1990)

The Lady’s Preceptor, Abbé d'Ancourt, 3rd ed. (London, 1745)

My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams, eds. Margaret A. Hogan, et. al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010)

New Hampshire Court Records, 1640 - 1692, ed. Otis G. Hammond (1943)

New World, New Roles A Documentary History of Women in Pre-Industrial America, eds. Sylvia R. Frey and Marion J. Morton (Westport, 1986)

Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion. Or the Character and Happiness of a Vertuous Woman…, Cotton Mather (London, 1794; first published Cambridge, 1692)

The Papers of Martha Washington, eds. Washington Papers Editors (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2022)

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, Phillis Wheatley (London, 1773)

The Probate Records of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1635 - 1681, 3 vols. (Salem, 1916-1920)

Probate Records of the Province of New Hampshire, ed. Albert Stillman Batchellor, 2 vols. (Concord, 1907)

Province Records and Court Papers, from 1680 to 1692, ed. Nathaniel Bouton, Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, vol. 8 (Concord, 1866)

Public Women, Public Works: A Documentary History of American Feminism, ed. Dawn Keetley, vol. 1, Beginnings to 1900 (New York, 1997)

Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, 9 vols. (Salem, 1912-1975)

Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1630 - 1692, ed. John Noble and John F. Cronin, 3 vols. (Boston, 1901-1928)

Records of the Particular Court of Connecticut, 1639 - 1663, Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, vol. 22 (1928)

Root of Bitterness: Documents of the Social History of American Women, ed. Nancy F. Cott (New York, 1972)

The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692, ed. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissembaum, 3 vols. (New York, 1977)

Salem-Village Witchcraft: A Documentary Record of Local Conflict in Colonial New England, eds. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum (Belmont, 1972)

The Sovereignty and Goodness of God Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed; Being a Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, Mary Rowlandson (Boston, 1682)

The Trial of Frederick Calvert, Esq.: Baron of Baltimore, in the Kingdom of Ireland for a Rape on the Body of Sara Woodcock…, ed. Joseph Gurney (London, 1768)

True Stories of New England Captives, ed. C. Alice Baker (Cambridge, 1897)

Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History, 1638 - 1692, ed. David D. Hall (Boston, 1991)

Women in the Eighteenth Century: Constructions of Femininity, ed. Vivien Jones (London, 1990)

The Young Gentleman and Lady Instructed in such Principles of Politeness, Prudence, and Virtue, as will Lay a Sure Foundation for Gaining Respect, Esteem, and Satisfaction… (London, 1759)

 Early National

A Confederate Nurse: The Diary of Ada W. Bacot, 1860 - 1863, ed. Jean V. Berlin (Columbia, 1994)

Adams Family Correspondence, eds. L. H. Butterfield, et. al., 15 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963 -)

The Adams - Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, ed. Lester J. Cappon (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959)

A Diary from Dixie, Mary Boykin Chesnut (Boston, 1951)

“A Diary of Trifling Occurences,” Sarah Logan Fisher, ed. Nicholas B. Wainwright, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 82 (1958)

“A Diplomat’s Wife in Philadelphia: Letters of Henrietta Liston, 1779-1800,” ed. Bradford Perkins, William and Mary Quarterly 11, no. 4 (October 1954): 592-632

Advice to Young Ladies on their Duty and Conduct in Life, Timothy Shay Arthur (Boston, 1849)

A Heritage of Woe: The Civil War Diary of Grace Elmore Brown, 1861 - 68, ed. Marli Weiner (Athens, 1997)

A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee: From the Battle of Shiloh to the End of the War, Kate Cumming (New Orleans, 1866)

The American Ladies Pocketbook (Philadelphia, 1802)

The American Lady, Charles Butler (Philadelphia, 1839)

The American Lady’s Preceptor (Baltimore, 1810)

American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, eds. Angelina Grimké and Theodore Dwight Weld (New York, 1839) 

An Address to the Public…Proposing a Plan for Improving Female Education, Emma Willard (Middlebury, 1819)

A Narration of Religious Experience, Harriet Livermore (Concord, 1826)

A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Horn, And her Two Children, with that of Mrs. Harris, by the Camanche Indians…, Sarah Ann Horn (St. Louis, 1839)

An Evening When Alone: Four Journals of Single Women in the South, 1827 - 67, ed. Michael O’Brien (Charlottesville, 1993)

“A New England Woman’s Perspective on Norfolk, Virginia, 1801-1802: Excerpts from the Diary of Ruth Henshaw Bascom,” ed. A. G. Roeber, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 88, part 2 (1979)

The Art of Good Behaviour: and Letter Writer on Love, Courtship, and Marriage: A Complete Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen, particularly those who have not Enjoyed the Advantages of Fashionable Life (New York, 1846)

A Season in New York, 1801: Letters of Harriet and Maria Trumbull, ed. Helen M. Morgan (Pittsburgh, 1969)

A Southern Woman of Letters: The Correspondence of Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, ed. Rebecca Grant Sexton (Columbia, 2002)

The Autobiography of Peggy Eaton, ed. Margaret Eaton (New York, 1932)

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, Mary Wollstonecraft (Boston, 1792)

Beadle’s Dime Book of Practical Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen: being a Guide to True Gentility and Good-breeding, and a Complete Directory to the Usages and Observances of Society (New York, 1859)

The Boarding School; Or, Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils…, Hannah Foster (Boston, 1798)

The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762 - 1784, ed. Lyman H. Butterfield et al. (Cambridge, 1975)

Chronicles of a Pioneer School from 1792 to 1833: Being the History of Miss Sarah Pierce and Her Litchfield School, ed. Emily Noyes Vanderpoel (Cambridge, 1903)

“Correspondence between John Adams and Mercy Otis Warren,” Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 5th ser., IV (Boston, 1878)

Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia (Boston, 1860)

The Coquette…, Hannah Webster Foster (Charlestown, 1802)

The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, ed. Elaine F. Crane, 3 vols. (Boston, 1991)

“The Diary of Frances Few, 180801809,” ed. Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., Journal of Southern History 29 (August 1963)

“Diary of Grace Growden Galloway, Kept at Philadelphia…,” ed. Raymond C. Werner, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 43 (1934)

Duties of Young Women, Edwin Hubbell Chapmin (Boston, 1848)

Early American Women: A Documentary History, 1600–1900, ed. Nancy Woloch, 3rd ed. (New York, 2013)

Early Negro Writing, 1760 – 1837, ed. Dorothy Porter (Boston, 1971)

Emily Hamilton, Sukey Watson (Worcester, 1803)

Everyone Has His Fault (As Performed at the New Theater, Philadelphia…, Elizabeth Ichbald (Philadelphia, 1794)

Extracts from the Journal of Elizabeth Drinker, from 1759 to 1807, ed. Henry D. Biddle (Philadelphia, 1889)

“Familiar Letters written between 1813 and 1831 from Friends in Salem to a Salem School Girl removed to Ohio,” Historical Collections of the Essex Institute 36 (April 1900)

The Female Advocate (New Haven, 1801)

The Female Guide: or, Thoughts on the Education of That Sex; Accommodated to the State of Society, Manners, and Government, in the United States, John Cosens Ogden (Concord, 1793)

Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventures of Dorcasina Sheldon, Tabitha Gilman Tenney, 2 vols. (Boston, 1825)

The First Forty Years of Washington Society, Margaret Bayard Smith, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York, 1906)

First White Women over the Rockies: Diaries, Letters,a nd Biographical Sketches of the Six Women of the Oregon Mission Who Made the Overland Journey in 1836 and 1838, Clifford Merrill Drury (Glendale, 1963)

The Florence Nightingale of the Southern Army: Experiences of Mrs. Ella K. Newsom, Confederate Nurse in the Great War of 1861 -1866, ed. Richard J. Fraise (New York, 1914)

The Gentleman’s and Lady’s Book of Politeness and Propriety of Deportment, dedicated to the Youth of Both Sexes, Madame Celnart (Boston, 1833)

George Washington’s Beautiful Nelly: The Letters of Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis to Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, 1794 - 1851, ed. Patricia Brady (New York, 1991)

The Gleaner, Judith Sargent Murray (1798)

Grandmother Tyler’s Book: The Recollections of Mary Palmer Tyler (Mrs. Royall Tyler), 1775 - 1866, eds. Frederick Tupper and Helen Tyler Brown (New York, 1925)

The Granite Farm Letters: The Civil War Correspondence of Edgeworth and Sallie Bird, ed. John Rozier (Athens, 1988)

Growing Up in the 1850s: The Journal of Agnes Lee, Mary Custis Lee deButts (Chapel Hill, 1984)

The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook for Ladies and Gentlemen (New York, 1859)

The History of the Condition of Women, in Various Ages and Nations, Lydia Maria Child (Boston, 1835)

History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution Interspersed with Biographical, Political, and Moral Observations, Mercy Otis Warren (1805)

History of Woman Suffrage, eds. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage (New York, 1881)

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs (Boston, 1861)

The Indian Peoples of Eastern America: A Documentary History of the Sexes, ed. James Axtell (New York, 1981)

“Journal of Miss Sally Wister,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 9 (1885)

Judith Sargent Murray: A Brief Biography with Documents, ed. Sheila Skemp (Boston, 1998)

Key to the Quarterly catalogues of the names of the young ladies, at the Newark Academy, under the instruction of Rev. Timothy Alden, with a historical sketch of the Academy (Newark, 1810)

Keziah Brevard: A Plantation Mistress on the Eve of the Civil War; The Diary of Keziah Brevard, 1800 - 1861, ed. John Hammond Moore (Columbia, 1993)

The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness, Florence Hartley (Boston, 1860)

The Lady’s Guide to Perfect Gentility, in Manners, Dress, and Conversation, in the Family, in Company, at the Piano Forte, the Table, in the Street, and in Gentleman’s Society…, Emily Thornwell (New York, 1856)

Laura, By a Lady of Philadelphia… (Philadelphia, 1809)

The Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina, 1862 – 1884, ed. Rupert Sargent Holland (New York, 1969)

Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians, George Catlin, 2 vols. (1841)

Letters of an Early American Traveller, Mary Austin Holley: Her Life and Works, 1784 - 1846, ed. Mattie Austin Hatcher (Dallas, 1933)

Letters of Eliza Wilkinson During the Invasion and Possession of Charleston…, ed. Caroline Gilman (New York, 1839)

Letters of Mary Boardman Crowninshield, ed. Francis Boardman Crowninshield (Cambridge, 1935)

Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimké Weld and Sarah Grimké, eds. Gilbert H. Barnes and Dwight L. Dumond, 2 vols. (New York, 1934)

Letters on Female Character, Virginia Cary (Richmond, 1828)

The Leverett Letters: Correspondence of a South Carolina Family, 1851 - 1868, eds. Frances Wallace, Cathern Taylor Matthews, and J. Tracy Power (Columbia, 2000)

Life of a Woman Pioneer, As Illustrated in the Life of Elsie Strawn Armstrong, 1789 - 1871, ed. James Elder Armstrong (Chicago, 1931)

Lucy Osmond, Alicia Sheridan LeFanu (New York, 1804)

Maria Stewart: America’s First Black Woman Political Writer: Essays and Speeches, ed. Marilyn Richardson (Bloomington, 1987)

Mary Telfair to Mary Few; Selected Letters, 1802 - 1844 (Athens, 2007)

Memoir of the Life of Eliza S. M. Quincy, Eliza Susan Quincy (Boston, 1861)

Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison, Wife of James Madison, President of the United States, ed. Lucia B. Cutts (Boston, 1886)

Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Sarah Osborn…, ed. Smauel Hopkins (Worcester, 1799)

Milcah Martha Moore’s Book: A Commonplace Book from Revolutionary America, ed. Catherine La Courreye Blecki and Karin A. Wulf (University Park, 1997)

The Minister’s Wooing, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1859)

Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, ed. and trans. Margaret Law Callcott (Baltimore, 1991)

My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams, eds. Margaret A. Hogan, et. al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010)

Nancy Shippen: Her Journal Book, ed. Ethel Armes (Philadelphia, 1935)

New Jersey in the American Revolution, 1763 - 1783: A Documentary History, ed. Larry R. Gerlach (Trenton, 1875)

New Letters of Abigail Adams, 1788 - 1801, ed. Stewart Mitchell (Boston, 1947)

News of the Plains and Rockies, 1803 - 1865: Original Narratives of Overland Travel, ed. David A. White, 2 vols. (Spokane, 1996)

New World, New Roles A Documentary History of Women in Pre-Industrial America, eds. Sylvia R. Frey and Marion J. Morton (Westport, 1986)

Night Flying Woman: An Ojibway Narrative, Ignatia Broker (St. Paul, 1983)

Observations on the Real Rights of Women, with their Appropriate Duties, agreeable to Scripture, Reason and Common Sense, Hannah Mather Crocker (Boston, 1818)

The Papers of Martha Washington, eds. Washington Papers Editors (Charlottesville, 2022)

The Personal Writings of Eliza Roxcy Snow, ed. Maureen Beecher (Logan, 2000)

“Phoebe George Bradford Diaries,” ed. W. Emerson Wilson, Delaware History 16 (1974-75)

Plays and Poems of Mercy Otis Warren, Mercy Otis Warren (1790)

Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous, Mercy Otis Warren (Boston, 1790)

Poems on Different Subjects, Sally Hastings (Lancaster, 1808)

The Power of Her Sympathy: The Autobiography and Journal of Catharine Maria Sedgwick, ed. Mary Kelley (Boston, 1993)

The Price of Loyalty: Tory Writings from the Revolutionary Era, ed. Catherine S. Crary (New York, 1973)

Public Women, Public Works: A Documentary History of American Feminism, ed. Dawn Keetley, vol. 1, Beginnings to 1900 (New York, 1997)

The Public Years of Sarah and Angelina Grimké: Selected Writings, 1835 – 1839, ed. Larry Ceplair (New York, 1989)

Reminiscences, Lucy Colman (Buffalo, 1891)

Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers, Susie King Taylor (Boston, 1902)

Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut…, ed. Ephraim Kirby (Litchfield, 1789)

Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Superior Courts of Law and Equity of the State of North-Carolina, From the Year 1789, to the Year 1798, ed. John Haywood (Halifax, 1799)

Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of Chancery of the State of South Carolina, from the Revolution, to [June 1817], ed. Henry William DeSaussure, 4 vols. (Columbia, 1817-1819)

Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Superior Courts of Law, in the State of South-Carolina, since the Revolution, ed. Elihu Hall Bay, 2 vols. (Charleston and New York, 1798-1811)

Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Boston, 1853)

Reports of Cases in Chancery Argued and Determined in the Court of Appeals of South Carolina, ed. W. R. Hill (Charleston, 1858)

The Rise and Progress of the Young Ladies’ Academy of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1794)

The Sabbath Journal of Judith Lomax, ed. Laura Hobgood-Oster (Atlanta, 1999)

Sarah Morgan: The Civil War Diary of a Southern Woman, ed. Charles East (Athens, 1991)

Schoolwomen of the Prairies and Plains: Personal Narratives from Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, 1860s to 1920s, ed. Mary Hurlbut Cordier (Albuquerque, 1992)

Select Cases of the Mayor’s Court of New York City, ed. Richard B. Morris (Washington, 1935)

The Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison, eds. David B. Mattern and Holly C. Shulman (Charlottesville, 2003)

Selected Letters of Mary Moody Emerson, ed. Nancy Craig Simmons (Athens, 1993)

Six Women’s Slave Narratives, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York, 1988)

Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies, ed. John W. Blassingame (Baton Rouge, 1979)

Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution, ed. Frank Moore (New York, 1856)

Testimonios: Early California through the Eyes of Women, 1815 - 1848, ed. and trans. Rose-Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz (Berkeley, 2006)

Texas: Observations, Historical, Geographical, and Descriptive, Mary Austin Holley (Baltimore, 1833)

The Three Sarahs: Documents of Antebellum Black College Women, eds. Ellen MicKenzie Lawson and Marlene D. Merrill (New York, 1984)

Victorian Lady on the Texas Frontier: The Journal of Ann Raney Thomas Coleman of Whitehaven, ed. Richard C. King (London, 1971)

Woman in her Various Relations: containing Practical Rules for American Females, L. G. Abell (New York, 1855)

Women and Slavery in America: A Documentary History, eds. Catherine M. Lewis and J. Richard Lewis (Fayetteville, 2011)

Women Invited to War, or A Friendly Address to the Honourable Women of the United States. By A Daughter of America, Hannah Adams (Boston, 1787)

The Young Lady’s Friend, Mrs. John Farrar (New York, 1838)

The Young Woman’s Guide to Excellence, William Alcott (Boston, 1840)

Early National Periodicals

American Moral and Sentimental Magazine (New York)

Ariel and Ladies’ Literary Gazette (Philadelphia)

Boston Weekly Magazine: or, Ladies’ and Gentleman’s Miscellany (Boston)

Euterpeiad: or, Musical Intelligencer, and Ladies’ Gazette (Boston)

Gentleman & Lady’s Town & Country Magazine; or, Repository of Instruction and Entertainment (Boston)

Godey’s Lady’s Book (Philadelphia)

Ladies Literary Museum, or, Weekly Repository (Philadelphia)

Ladies Magazine (Philadelphia)

Lady’s Monitor (New York)

Mrs. A. S. Colvin’s Weekly Messenger (Washington)

New-York Weekly Museum, or Polite Repository (New York)

Peterson’s Magazine (Philadelphia)

Weekly Visitor, or, Ladies’ Miscellany (New York)