Women in the American Revolution

The heroes of American independence, including Sam Adams, George Washington, Thomas Paine, and Patrick Henry are well-known to us, and the men who fought the Revolution are celebrated in our volumes of history. How about the female heroes/heroines? Women of this era remain figures on the margins of history. What roles did women play in the politics and the propaganda battles before and after Lexington and Concord? How did the American woman cope with a war waged in her own land? What became of those whose husbands or fathers chose loyalty to King rather than native land? American women-loyalists or rebels-played active roles in the years of the Revolution. They were spies, soldiers, and prisoners of war. They raised money and supplies for the armies. They kept the farms and businesses going so that soldiers would have something to come home to. They recorded their experience in poems, plays, journals, and even a three-volume history of the American Revolution. The broadsheets and facsimiles of contemporary documents in this portfolio illustrate the breadth of activity of the American woman during the war for independence. Your students' new knowledge will move her from the margins of the historical page to its vital center where the American woman belongs. 5 Illustrated Broadsheet Essays: * Women in Politics and Propaganda * The Home Front War * Civilian Heroines and Army Wives * Loyalist Women and Exile * Why No Women's Rights after the Revolution? 10 Primary Source Documents: * An installment of Mercy Warren's play The Defeat from the Boston Gazette, July 19, 1773 * "Ode to George Washington," a poem by Phillis Wheatley from the April 1776 issue of Pennsylvania Magazine * "Advertisement for Spinners" from the Pennsylvania Packet, August 7, 1775 * "A New Touch on the Times Well Adapted to the Distressing Situation of Every Sea-Port Town," a broadside, 1779 * "A letter from a lady in Philadelphia to her friend in this place," from the Boston Independent Chronicle, July 27, 1780 * An excerpt from the Marquis of Chastellux's Voyages, published in Paris in 1786, and a translation * General orders of George Washington, August 4, 1777, and a transcript * A letter from Hannah Winthrop to Mercy Warren, November 11, 1777, and a transcript * "Pension for Margaret Corbin" from the journal of the Continental Congress, July 6, 1779, and a transcript * A letter from Esther Sewall to her sister-in-law Katy Quincy, March 29, 1778, and a transcript