During the course of my research for Bitch: the Journey of a Word, I encountered the eccentric John Neal (1793-1876) and his novel Seventy-Six. This exploration of the American Revolutionary War is a fascinating and often overlooked piece of early American literature. 

Well before the writings of William James and James Joyce, Seventy-Six was penned in a stream-of-consciousness style, which Neal himself described in the book’s preface as, “rambing incoherency, passion, and extravagance.” The novel was also replete with slang and expletives. Of interest to my work was Neal’s early use of the phrase “son of a bitch.” The protagonist, Jonathan Oadley, recounts a battle scene in which he’s mounted on a horse: “I wheeled, made a dead set at the son-of-a-bitch in my rear, unhorsed him, and actually broke through the line.” This usage paved the way for the expression to become America’s favorite insult from the eighteenth century until at least the middle of the twentieth century. 

At the time, Neal’s book was criticized heavily for its foul profanity and sexual content, although the author was unapologetic. As narrator, Oadley says, “My style may often offend you. I do not doubt that it will. I hope that it will. It will be remembered the better.” 

The novel is now praised as the closest representation of colloquial Yankee American English of its day, which gives us a glimpse into the use of son of a bitch in everyday speech. 

Neal was a political and social commentator. Seventy-Six mixed fiction with history, providing a gritty, raw, and real account of the American Revolution. Unlike the romanticized and patriotic versions of events that depicted war as glorious and noble, Neal’s novel depicted the war as it was—brutal, violent, chaotic, and morally complicated.  

In addition to his writing, Neal was an activist for a number of progressive causes. He challenged social conventions of the time, opposing the practice of dueling and the death penalty. An early proponent for equal rights, he advocated for indigenous American people and was a vocal opponent of enslavement. He opened the first public gymnasium in Portland, Oregon, but later severed his relationship with the gym when the majority of members would not support his nomination of African-Americans for membership. Neal was a campaigner for women’s rights as well. Seventy-Six was ahead of its time in portraying strong, complex, and defiant women characters. Neal became the country’s first lecturer on women’s rights, and this became the cause for which he fought most vigorously. The early feminist Margaret Fuller worked with Neal and admired him for his “magnetic genius” and “lion heart.” She wrote of him, “I knew none who was so truly a man.”

An activist until the very end, at the age of 79, Neal reportedly threw a man off a streetcar for defiantly smoking a cigar inside the non-smoking vehicle. 

Though Seventy-Six isn’t well known today, Neal’s writing style inspired a distinctly American form of expression, and he remains an important historical figure for his early activism and advocacy. 

Dr. Karen Stollznow is the author of On the Offensive: Prejudice in Language Past and Present and her latest book is Bitch: The Journey of a Word. 

Bitch by Karen Stollznow