250 and Counting

250 and Counting


March 31, 1775: Mercy Otis Warren, Ignoring the Rules

March 31, 2025
Cover art for March 31, 1775: photo of the statue of Mercy Otis Warren that stands outside the County Courthouse in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel,. Other than cropping to fit, used without changes under the Creative Commons License.

Today’s episode marks the end of Women’s History Month. We’ve noted a few episodes since this adventure first started that involved women taking political action as groups, but Mercy Otis Warren was one of the most influential individual women to take a political stand in the Revolution era.



She was self-educated, and married a man who was both enlightened and politically active himself, and she used her position as her husband’s hostess to develop and maintain connections of her own. She was also able to use what she learned to develop some of the pieces she wrote, whether they were factual or thinly-disguised fiction pieces.



Claude and his wife Shannon did the extra-touristy thing of visiting Plymouth, Massachusetts during Thanksgiving weekend several years ago, and we did see the Mercy Otis Warren statue, but frankly at that time we still had a lot to learn about her. (If you go, be warned that Plymouth Rock is even more disappointing than everyone tells you it is.)



And because it’s an episode celebrating Mercy Warren, we talked Shannon into recording the episode. Enjoy.