The Whites of their Eyes by Matt Braun Page B

August 8, 1807; Warren to Adams, August 7, 1807, in John Adams and Mercy Otis Warren,
Correspondence between John Adams and Mercy Warren
, ed. Charles Francis Adams (New York: Arno Press, 1972), 21, 381, 429, 422–23.
    4 John Adams to Timothy Pickering, August 6, 1822,
Works of John Adams
, 2:514; John Adams to Benjamin Rush, June 21, 1811, in
The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, 1805–1813
, ed. John A. Schultz and Douglas Adair (1966; repr., Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000), 197.
    5
John Adams
, HBO, New York, 2008.
    6 John Adams to Elbridge Gerry, April 17, 1813, in
Warren-Adams Letters
(Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1925), 2:380.
    7 Jane Mecom to Benjamin Franklin, December 30, 1765; Mecom to Franklin, October 21, 1784; Franklin to Mecom, July 7, 1773; Mecom to Franklin, July 21, 1786, in
The Letters of Benjamin Franklin and Jane Mecom
, ed. Carl Van Doren (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950), 86, 232, 275, 139. On Mecom, see Carl Van Doren,
Jane Mecom, the Favorite Sister of Benjamin Franklin
(New York: Viking, 1950); Anne Firor Scott,
Making the Invisible Woman Visible
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 3–13; andNeremy A. Stern, “Jane Franklin Mecom: A Boston Woman in Revolutionary Times,”
Early American Studies
4 (2006): 147–91.
    8 Anne Bradstreet, “The Prologue,” in
The Works of Anne Bradstreet
, ed. Jeannine Hensley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 16;
Boston Evening Post
, December 10, 1744;
American Magazine, or General Repository
, August 1769, 243–44; E. Jennifer Monaghan, “Literacy Instruction and Gender in Colonial America,”
American Quarterly
40 (1988): 18–41; E. Jennifer Monaghan,
Learning to Read and Write in Colonial America
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005); Thomas Woody,
A History of Women’s Education in the United States
(New York: Science Press, 1924), 1:146; Kenneth Lockridge,
Literacy in Colonial New England
(New York: Norton, 1974); Gloria L. Main, “An Inquiry into When and Why Women Learned to Write in Colonial New England,”
Journal of Social History
24 (Spring 1991): 579–89; Joel Perlmann and Dennis Shirley, “When Did New England Women Acquire Literacy?”
William and Mary Quarterly
48 (1991): 50–67.
    9 Jane Mecom, “The Book of Ages” in
Letters of Franklin and Mecom
, 100–101.
    10 For admission and discharge records of the almshouse, see Eric Nellis and Anne Decker Cecere, eds.,
The Eighteenth-Century Records of the Boston Overseers of the Poor
(Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2007). Edward Mecom’s troubles with creditors can be traced in the Suffolk Files of the Massachusetts Archives, Boston. See, for instance,
Collson v. Mecom
, January 1737, Document 45414, Reel 163;
Perkins v. Mecom
, July 1739, Document 49481, Reel 175; and
Ruddock v. Mecom
, January 1765, Document 85880, Reel 274. Jane Mecom to Deborah Franklin, September 28, 1765; Mecom to Franklin, December 30, 1765, in
Letters of Franklin and Mecom
, 83, 87. Seealso
Papers of Franklin
5:67. Jane’s son Peter Franklin Mecom was the only one of her children to whom she gave a middle name.
    11
Papers of Franklin
, 3:306–8.
    12 Franklin to Mecom, undated but 1748,
Letters of Franklin and Mecom
, 43.
    13 Franklin to Edward and Jane Mecom, November 30, 1752,
Letters of Franklin and Mecom
, 50.
    14 Articles of Agreement with David Hall” [January 1, 1748],
Papers of Franklin
3:263–67; Franklin to Mecom, June 28, 1756,
Letters of Franklin and Mecom
, 53.
    15 Franklin to William Strahan, April 18, 1754,
Papers of Franklin
, 5:82. See also Wilberforce Eames,
The Antigua Press and Benjamin Mecom, 1748–1765
(Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 1929).
    16 These transactions are recounted in notes and correspondence in
Letters of Franklin and Mecom
, 57–64.
    17
Papers of Franklin
, 1:311; 2:300–301; Lemay,
Life of Franklin
, 2:172.
    18
Papers of Franklin
, 3:30–31; 6:123.
    19