Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727)

.Also known as Madame Knight and Widow Knight. Teacher and businesswoman. humorous
Journal of Madam Knight: a travel diary considered an authentic chronicle of eighteenthcentury colonial life.
.First published in 1825; a humorous journal of her journey from Boston to New York. Wrote
her journal from notes jotted down while she was travelling. Intended for a restricted audience;
circulated among friends; a fact which accounts for the jokes about herself.
.Unlike most journals, which usually presented some spiritual growth or tragic experience, she
wrote her Journal as entertainment, (in this sense, "an important contribution to the tradition of
American humor). It reflects the secular tendencies of the time.
.Speaks of her lodgings and the people she encounters along the way. Images of the
frontier/wilderness of her time. Describes blacks, Indians, and other settlers in different
colonies.
.Unlike in other similar works, not much concern with nature, seen as either Eden or
Wilderness. Lack of religious themes; few allusions to God or Providence.

John Woolman (172072)

.A Quaker. Kept his journal intermittently between 1756 and his death; published by the Society
of Friends in 1774. Attempts to show his experience of the goodness of God in an
increasingly secular rationalistic age. Supports the rights of Native Americans and attacks
slavery. Criticizes the evils of his time: poverty, slavery, racism, bigotry and social injustice.

Bibliography
Augustyn, Adam. American Literature from 1600 through 1850s. New York: Britannica
Educational Publishing, 2011.
Gray, Richard. A History of American Literature. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004
Lauter, Paul ed. A Companion to American Literature and Culture. Malden MA:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Meyers, Karen. Colonialism and the Revolutionary Road. New York: Facts on File, 2006
Vietto, Angela. Early American Literature, 1776-1820. New York: Facts on File, 2010.