Mary Palmer Tyler wrote one of the earliest childcare manuals published by an American woman. Raised in Watertown, Massachusetts, she was the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Hunt and patriot Joseph Pearse Palmer, who had graduated from Harvard College and fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Both her parents encouraged Mary to read and helped to develop her intellect. During the Revolutionary War, the Palmers lost much of their wealth and resorted to apprenticing Mary as a mother's helper to wealthy friends; later they sent her to live with relatives in eastern New York, and in 1793 she briefly taught school. Mary Palmer married her father's friend Royall Tyler, a Harvard-educated lawyer, well-known as the author of the early American comedy, "The Contrast" (1787). Their first child, born in December 1794, was probably conceived before their marriage during a period when Royall was traveling to Vermont seeking opportunity as a lawyer. The couple eventually migrated to Guilford in 1796. They purchased a farm in Brattleboro in 1801, the same year Royall was appointed to the Vermont Supreme Court. While he traveled the state as a jurist, Mary raised eleven children on their Brattleboro farm. In 1811 Mary Tyler published "The Maternal Physician" anonymously through her husband's publishing contacts. The manual is significant because Tyler outlined an expanded role in child rearing for mothers beyond the customary practice of colonial women.
http://womenshistory.vermont.gov/?TabId=61&personID=169
the Vermont Womens History Project
Mary Palmer Tyler wrote one of the earliest childcare manuals published by an American woman. Raised in Watertown, Massachusetts, she was the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Hunt and patriot Joseph Pearse Palmer, who had graduated from Harvard College and fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Both her parents encouraged Mary to read and helped to develop her intellect. During the Revolutionary War, the Palmers lost much of their wealth and resorted to apprenticing Mary as a mother's helper to wealthy friends; later they sent her to live with relatives in eastern New York, and in 1793 she briefly taught school. Mary Palmer married her father's friend Royall Tyler, a Harvard-educated lawyer, well-known as the author of the early American comedy, "The Contrast" (1787). Their first child, born in December 1794, was probably conceived before their marriage during a period when Royall was traveling to Vermont seeking opportunity as a lawyer. The couple eventually migrated to Guilford in 1796. They purchased a farm in Brattleboro in 1801, the same year Royall was appointed to the Vermont Supreme Court. While he traveled the state as a jurist, Mary raised eleven children on their Brattleboro farm. In 1811 Mary Tyler published "The Maternal Physician" anonymously through her husband's publishing contacts. The manual is significant because Tyler outlined an expanded role in child rearing for mothers beyond the customary practice of colonial women.
http://womenshistory.vermont.gov/?TabId=61&personID=169
the Vermont Womens History Project
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