What real woman of Puritan history does Hawthorne compare Hester with to illustrate the "emancipated woman?"

Anne Hutchinson, mentioned in Chapter 1, The Prison Door, was a religious dissenter (1591–1643). In the 1630s she was excommunicated by the Puritans and exiled from Boston and moved to Rhode Island.

Also it is worth noting that Hester Prynne might have been loosely based on Hawthorne's wife, Sofia Peabody.