The decades after the American Revolution witnessed the first great outpouring of women's published writing in American history. That women expressed themselves through their writing was not a new development. From the earliest days of settlement, as Sharon M. Harris's recent anthology, American Women Writers to 1800 demonstrates, women composed a vast number of works in a variety of genres. Yet colonial women usually wrote only for a limited audience - for their own satisfaction, for the edification of family members, or for the entertainment of friends in a private social circle. Rarely, and only through exceptional circumstances, did the works of an Anne Bradstreet or a Phillis Wheatley make it into print. What most distinguished the postcolonial culture of women's writing, then, was that substantial numbers of women began to write with the explicit intention of seeking publication for their work.

What effected this change? This chapter explores the transitional period between 1780 and 1830, a time during which women shifted from writing primarily for private audiences to writing for a broader public. One part of the answer lies in the expansion of print culture. While electoral politics continued to exclude women, publication did not. Whereas the “public sphere,” as Jürgen Habermas has called it, consisted of males, the “literary public sphere” easily assimilated women. The enormous increase in the number of books, newspapers, and magazines being published created new audiences, including women. The demand for more material called forth the entry of new writers into the field, especially women.