Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Warren, Mercy Otis (1728-1814) to Catharine Macaulay Graham

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC01800.04 Author/Creator: Warren, Mercy Otis (1728-1814) Place Written: Plymouth, Massachusetts Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 20 September 1789 Pagination: 4 p. : docket ; 23 x 19 cm. Order a Copy

Written after news of the beginning of the French Revolution reached America. Assesses the new government's prospects. Remarks, "we are too poor for Monarchy, too wise for Despotism, and too dissipated selfish & extravagant for Republicanism." Discusses the struggles of the infant republic.

Warren is the sister of the prominent Massachusetts patriot James Otis and herself an important early American historian and writer.

Macaulay, Catharine, 1731-1791
Warren, Mercy Otis, 1728-1814

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