Sarah Osborn (February 22, 1714 – August 2, 1796) was an early American

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

and Evangelical writer who experienced her own type of "religious awakening" during the birth of American

Evangelicalism Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...

, and through her memoirs, served as a preacher. Born in London, she moved to

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

as a child, where she would eventually go on to write a series of memoirs which were later preserved by Samuel Hopkins, entitled, ''Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Sarah Osborn, Who Died in Newport, on the Second Day of August, 1796''Samuel Hopkins, ''Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Sarah Osborn: Who Died in Newport, on the Second Day of August, 1796, in the Eighty-Third Year of Her Age'' (Gale & Sabin International, 2012). Enclosed within her diary, are the musings of a troubled and complicated woman, who experienced a great deal of hardship, and in turn, wanted to show that her life had meaning through the "grace of God."Catherine A. Brekus, ''Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America'' (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2013). First written in 1742 at the age of 29 as a way to deal with life's difficulties, she quickly became aware of her work's value, and later "emerged as the leader of a remarkable religious revival that brought as many as five hundred people-including large numbers of slaves-to her house each week."Catherine A. Brekus, ''Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America'' (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2013): 6. Sarah Osborn died in

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...

on August 2, 1796 at the age of 83.

References

* Mary Beth Norton, "'My Resting Reaping Times': Sarah Osborn's Defense of Her 'Unfeminine' Activities," Signs 2, No. 2 (1976). * Charles Chauncy, Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New-England (Boston: Rogers and Fowle, 1742). * Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, "'Spiritual Pilgrimage of Sarah Osborn (1714-1796)," ''Church History'' 61, no. 4 (December 1992). * Catherine A. Brekus, Sarah Osborn's World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2013). * John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 4 vols. (1690;rpt. London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1706), vol. 1. * Samuel Hopkins, ''Memoirs of the life of Mrs. Sarah Osborn: Who Died in Newport, on the Second Day of August, 1796, in the Eighty-Third Year of Her Age'' (Gale & Sabin International, 2012).

External links

''Familiar Letters''
at Google Books *

' (1799) Online edition in the University of Oxford Text Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Osborn, Sarah 1714 births 1796 deaths Writers from London 18th-century American women writers 18th-century American non-fiction writers British emigrants to the Thirteen Colonies American memoirists American women memoirists