In our three blogs on the American Revolution in Virginia social history, we turn first to women’s studies, then African American and lastly religious history. In “Revolutionary Mothers” we see the participation of women in the Revolution with the concepts of women’s studies. “Women of the Republic” focuses on the political, while “Liberty’s Daughters” focuses on the domestic history of American women of the Revolution.
“To Be Useful In the World” studies four women’s families through three generations, two of them Virginians, one white and one black. “Beyond the Household” explains how Virginia and Carolina women sought to influence affairs through three historical eras in a “public sphere” to advocate for family as distinguished from political realms where they were excluded.
Revolution-Constitution-New Nation. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Virginia history divided by time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.
Revolutionary Mothers
Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle of America’s Independence was written by Carol Berkin in 2005. In a synthesis of women’s scholarship over the last twenty years, she introduces major concepts framing current research on early American women by examining the lives of women in the American Revolution across class and cultural divides. The narrative traces the transformation of expectations from the “ideal woman of the farmhouse” to the “ideal woman of the eighteenth century parlor”, where republican mothers would nurture republican children.
Women participated in every aspect of the Revolution, from protests and boycotts, to the shifting worlds of battlefield and home front, to exploits of female spies and saboteurs. Patriots, loyalist exiles, Native Americans and African-American women all receive their due. Learn more to buy “Revolutionary Mothers” here for your bookshelf.
Women of the Republic
Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America was written by Linda K. Kerber in 1980. In an exploration of the origins and consequences of the American Revolution, Kerber addresses the intersection of ideology, intellect, politics, law and women’s lives in their political roles. Her subjects are primarily white, literate and middle class.
She first describes how women contributed to the war effort in boycotts, home production, and support of troops in the field. She then turns to women’s issues of marital status, divorce, education and women’s reading. The “Spirit of Academy making” exploded nationwide to prepare women for their new service to the republic. Although the study of history was encouraged, women continued to seek out imaginative literature.
While the exercise of law and governance remained a male sphere, civil society in a republic was said to depend on an educated citizenry, and that relied on educated women as the wives and mothers of citizens, “Republican Motherhood”. These roles extended to greater formal education, home financial management, and associations of reformers in a new participation in public affairs. Learn more to buy “Women of the Republic” here for your bookshelf.
Liberty’s Daughters
Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 was written by Mary Beth Norton in 1980. It is a social history stressing the domestic sphere of women as wives, mothers and household managers. The Revolution brought about a transformation from subservient and deferential help mates of husbands to a world requiring them to act on their own, whether they wanted to or not.
A commons saying was that “A soldier made is a farmer lost”, and women found that wartime brought about demands of self-assertion and independence in a sort of mass initiation that was found before only in widowhood. The ideology of republicanism insisted on voluntary consent which upset gender relationships, and women began to think better of themselves.
Norton describes the experience of women who were black and white, slave and free, rich upper class and poor illiterate, Northerners and Southerners, urban merchants and rural farmers. Learn more to buy “Liberty’s Daughters” here for your bookshelf.
To Be Useful in the World
To Be Useful in the World: Women in Revolutionary America, 1740-1790 was written by Joan R. Gundersen in 1996. In a synthesis of women’s roles over the course of fifty years and three generations, Gundersen clarifies the common elements that are similar but not identical for four principles.
They are Elizabeth Dutoy Porter of Virginia and her slave Peg, Deborah Read Franklin of Philadelphia and Margaret Brant of the Mohawk tribe in New York.
The topical approach adopted in the book looks at women and their mobility, marriage and the family, work, servitude and slavery, and education, religion and crime. Over the course of this study as the market economy developed, Gundersen sees increasing separation between private and public realms of social relations, with middle and upper class women restricted to the home, despite the temporary Revolutionary wartime involvement in political and military affairs. Learn more to buy “To Be Useful in the World” here for your bookshelf.
Beyond the Household
Beyond the Household: Women’s Place in the Early South, 1700-1835 was written by Cynthia A. Kierner in 2000. She treats the public sphere of Virginian and Carolina women in the Colonial, Revolutionary and Early Nation periods of American history. In each of these eras, Kierner finds that women exploited the difference between politics where they were excluded, and public life which they were permitted to enter as long as they justified it in terms of defending the home and family.
The book, which focuses on upper class Southerners, begins with the assertion that colonial gentlemen achieved a refinement by encouraging their wives to pursue an education for use in political connections at home entertaining and balls. The Revolutionary period marked the high point and then decline of women’s participation in public political activity.
The rationale for female education changed from a social requirement that a gentle lady had to be well read, to the nurturing requirement that a wife and mother was required to teach republican values. But into the 19th century, Southern women did not organize in public associations against threats to family such as demon rum as New England women did. Learn more to buy “Beyond the Household” here for your bookshelf.
Revolution-Constitution-New Nation. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Virginia history divided by time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.