Anne Dudley Bradstreet was born on March 20, 1612 in Northampton England to
Mr and Mrs Thomas Dudley. At the age of sixteen, she married Simon Bradstreet and began their family.
In 1630, she and her family, including her parents sailed to america on the ship Arbella.
Ocean voyages in the 17th century, were often hazardous and often arduous. Not surprisingly, Anne described her voyage on the Arbella as three difficult months on the rough cold sea. However, her difficulties did not end when the sea voyage was over.
Everything about life in the new world was strange to her. Anne Bradstreet told her children in her memoirs, “I found a new world and new manners at which my heart rose up in protest.” However, they established themselves successfully in the Massachusetts
Bay
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Because of this Anne did her writing for private and family use only. The effect of her education on her family was profound. There is an old saying, “educate a girl, and you educate a family.” And that was certainly true of her. Simon was part of a group that founded Harvard University in 1636, and two of her sons graduated from that prestigious institution.
Anne was a member of the Puritan community which frowned on literature of any type other than the Bible. This was another reason that, although she was a prolific writer, she never published any of her work. Despite her education and her many success,
Anne had to overcome several hardships during her life. The ocean voyage and the move to the new world was one of these. She suffered from poor health for much of her life. She was afflicted with the dreaded smallpox disease as a teenager and it flared up again later in life. Also as was common in those days, some of her children died when they were very young. In the 1660’s, her house burned down and she and her family were homeless for a time. However, Anne’s indomitable spirit was more than equal to all of these sufferings. This can be seen by the fact that she responded to her