Introduction
by Susan Wilson

     "Remember the Ladies," wrote Abigail Adams to husband John in 1776, "and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors!" In the two centuries since Abigail's oft-quoted note, however, neither John nor the generations of men that followed did much to remember, credit, or commemorate the numerous women who helped mold and maintain the New Republic. Even in Boston, the acknowledged "Cradle of Liberty," the accomplishments of women were generally footnotes and afterthoughts, rather than the stuff of biographies, annual celebrations, and public statues.
     In 1989 that all began to change, when a group of Boston Public School teachers, librarians, and their students brainstormed and inaugurated the Boston Women's Heritage Trail. Like The Hub's two extant walks - the Freedom Trail and the Black Heritage Trail - this new historic trek promised to take visitors through fascinating slices and stories from Boston's illustrious past. Unlike its predecessors, the Boston Women's Heritage Trail highlighted the work of women, from household names like Abigail Adams, Phillis Wheatley, Amelia Earhart, Louisa May Alcott, and Rose Kennedy, to less-familiar leaders like Chew Shee Chin, Julia O'Connor, Clementine Langone, and Melnea Cass.

     Here you will find members of the BWHT Board and Staff - the women who help us to "Remember the Ladies."