ABSTRACT
In the midst of discussing the work of the Continental Congress and army, Adams repeatedly pushes for the extension of the revolutionary rhetoric of liberty to women and to enslaved Africans. Although an enslaved African woman, Wheatley's prodigy and her poetic gifts gave her access to people of great power, and her participation in the discourse of sensibility and freedom highlighted the injustice and deep inequities on which the revolution and the new republic were being built. Women's personal experiences with the violent repercussions of revolution authorized their public writing. In the midst of what seemed like continual agitation over what the country had become and what it ought to be, many women took advantage of the ever-increasing popularity of print culture to make their own arguments about how the revolution had played out in the lives of women.
