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want to make their work public, so they circulated their writings in manuscript, forming what has been termed a "third sphere" of discourse, neither fully public nor fully private. Moore's own commonplace book, which she called "Martha Moore's Book", focused on poetry written by women in her circle and included over 125 poems (some of them quite long) by more than a dozen writers. The exact number of contributors is uncertain because some of the women are represented under pseudonyms or initials, not all of which have been securely connected to known individuals. About half of the poems are by Moore's second cousin
144:. The phrase "moral and instructive" gives a clear idea of the nature of her own poetry. Endorsed by Benjamin Franklin in a brief statement in the book's front matter, Moore's book was used in Philadelphia-area schools until well into the 19th century. Earnings from the book's sales went towards a school for indigent girls that Moore founded in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and Moore herself taught there for the rest of her life. Upon her death in 1829, she left the school an endowment.
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113:, between the mid-1760s and 1778, and a number of the poems, especially those by Griffitts, are satires on political events of the day. Occasional verse is a favored form—especially elegies and birthday poems—and there are also hymns and verse letters. Apart from poems, there are extracts from a journal kept by Fergusson during a trip to England as well as some passages copied from the works of
136:, who edited the book for publication, consider it "the richest surviving body of evidence revealing the nature and substance of women's intellectual community in British America." In general, scholars of the period similarly value it for its contribution to understanding of the role of Quaker women in late 18th century American political and cultural life.
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as a method of creating a private, informal historical record of their own era, collecting in them aphorisms, quotations, advice, poems, letters, reminiscences, recipes, and other materials of personal significance. Many of these women either found difficulty getting their work published or did not
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In 1767 Milcah married the physician
Charles Moore, who was a cousin of hers. Since the Quakers did not favor marriages between close kin, the couple was expelled from the Society of Friends. They lived at various times in Philadelphia, an important literary and political center of life in the
125:. With their strongly moral tone and striving towards personal improvement, it has been suggested that compendia such as Moore's were precursors to the advice columns that would become a staple of 19th century newspapers, and which had just begun to appear in the early republic.
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Moore herself was a poet as well as an appreciator of other writers' verse. Her own poems, together with verse by other writers, aphorisms, and proverbs—some of it culled from her commonplace book—were published in a textbook that she edited for young readers in 1787 entitled
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for a fragmentary journal she kept during the revolutionary period of 1776-78 for Milcah's amusement. Her father was a physician and trader who had moved to
Madeira as a result of financial setbacks, and her mother was a granddaughter of
106:, who are considered three of the era's most talented women writers of the eastern seaboard. Of particular value are those by the polymath Wright, only four of whose poems were known before the discovery of Moore's book.
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Miscellanies, Moral and
Instructive, in Prose and Verse; Collected from Various Authors, for the Use of Schools, and Improvement of Young Persons of Both Sexes
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Miscellanies, Moral and
Instructive, in Prose and Verse; Collected from Various Authors, for the Use of Schools, and Improvement of Young Persons of Both Sexes
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56:. She was one of eight children (six of them girls, of whom she was the youngest); one of her sisters would later become known under her married name of
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The title page from a
Philadelphia, 1787 edition, one of the many, of Milcah Martha Moore's Miscellanies. This copy is inscribed by Mary Clarkson.
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Klepp, Susan E. "Milcah Martha Moore's Book: A Commonplace Brook from
Revolutionary America by Catherine La Courreye Blecki, Karin A. Wulf".
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362:. Educating the Youth of Pennsylvania: Worlds of Learning in the Age of Franklin, University of Pennsylvania Libraries website.
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Morris, Margaret. "The
Revolutionary Journal of Margaret Morris, of Burlington, N.J., December 6, 1776, to June 11, 1778".
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Kelley, Mary. "'A More
Glorious Revolution': Women's Antebellum Reading Circles and the Pursuit of Public Influence."
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Logan, Lisa M. "" Dear Matron—": Constructions of Women in
Eighteenth-Century American Periodical Advice Columns."
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Blecki, Catherine L., and Lorett Treese. "Susanna Wright's" The Grove": A Philosophic
Exchange with James Logan."
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of Pennsylvania. Milcah's mother died shortly before the journey was made, and her father not long after.
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Mekeel, Arthur J. "Milcah Martha Moore's Book: A Commonplace Book from Revolutionary America (review)".
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featuring the work of women writers of her circle and compiler of a printed book of prose and poetry.
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Baker, Noelle A. "'Let Me Do Nothing Smale': Mary Moody Emerson and Women's 'Talking' Manuscripts".
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Barone, Dennis. "Before the Revolution: Formal Rhetoric in Philadelphia During the Federal Era."
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After her husband died in 1801, Moore rejoined the Quakers. She died in New Jersey in 1829.
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Memory's Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-Century America
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Milcah Martha Hill was born in 1740 to Richard and Deborah (Moore) Hill in
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Milcah Martha Moore's Book: A Commonplace Book from Revolutionary America
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Moore's commonplace book was first published in 1997 under the title
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An example of a commonplace book from the mid 17th century
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Bulletin of Friends' Historical Society of Philadelphia
252:. History of American Women website, Oct. 27, 2008.
274:Blecki, Catherine La Courreye, and A. Wulf, eds.
109:The collection was made around the time of the
32:(1740–1829) was an 18th-century American
360:"Revolutionary Visions: Women's Initiative(s)"
250:"Milcah Martha Moore: Quaker Writer and Poet"
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278:. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.
132:. Scholars Catherine La Courreye Blecki and
195:. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.
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308:65:4 (Autumn 1998). (Review).
155:American Revolutionary period
288:"Milcah Martha Moore's Book"
408:18th-century American poets
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330:Moore, Milcah Martha, ed.
130:Milcah Martha Moore's Book
104:Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson
263:Studies in American Humor
232:Early American Literature
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