thisnthatwithatwist

Everyone’s heard of Paul Revere, George Washington, Benedict Arnold and Alexander Hamilton but women in the American Revolution played a deciding factor in the success of the colonists in winning their freedom from the dictatorship of England. While some chose to pick up muskets or fight with an arrow or a cannon.  Others chose a pen, a needle, a pitchfork, sculpting tools, or an apron.  So this Independence weekend, I’ve decided to shine some light on some of our founding foremothers.   

The American Revolution forced women to take more active, hands on role in managing farms and businesses while men were in military.

            One example of this was Mary Silliman. After British loyalist- or Tories- took her husband, Selleck, captive, Mary began a campaign to liberate him. During this time she also took charge of the household, raising the children, and working in the fields, most of the time while she was pregnant.

            Another example of colonial women’s ability to run a household was Eliza Pinckney. Twice in her life she successfully took over for men.  By age sixteen, Eliza’s mother had died and she was left to take care of her siblings and run three plantations in Charleston, South Carolina because her father, George Lucas, a British military officer, had to return to the Caribbean, where Eliza was born. Later, after her husband Charles’ death in 1758, She took over management of his several plantations.

Response to this show of capability during the war encouraged more emphasis within marriage and family affection, esteem, friendship, mutuality, and balancing of spouses. Wives were to be viewed as companions, as individuals entitled to happiness,

“Husband and wife should be patient one toward another…You, therefore, that are husbands and wives, do not aggravate every error or mistake, every wry step as though it were a willfully designed intolerable crime; for this would soon break all to pieces.”  (Woloch, Nancy. Early American Women, McGraw-Hill, 1997. Page 28) 

An additional development was the perception of mothers as the proper persons to convey family ideals to their children; in particular to impart virtue, piety, and patriotism to their sons. For they were the ones with the responsibility of preserving the new republic, enhancing the social importance of motherhood and the positive image of women over the traditional one of women as unskilled and weak.

On a political note, during the war, women didn’t speak out, publicly or participate other than private discussions regarding public affairs.

 However, writings and commentaries by women, such as Abigail Adams, do reveal women beginning to re-examine their position. Adams warned her husband John to “Remember the ladies” when configuring the new nation.  She cautioned that if independence was declared that the new nation should treat women better than the British had before them. “Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could,” (Woloch, Nancy. Early American Women, McGraw-Hill, 1997. Page 128) and even stated that if women were not given attention that they would not consider themselves bound by the law. 

Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, also called for legal reform in order to prevent male tyranny over women.

Women call for more educational opportunities, and by 1790’s more provisions were made for elementary and secondary education for girls and young women, including the establishment of “female academies,” thus beginning a reduction in the literacy gap between men and women.

In the 15 years following the American Revolution the status of women also changes.  There was a movement to allow for better women’s education.

One of the first was the Philadelphia Young Ladies Academy established in 1787.  In July, one of the trustees, Benjamin Rush spoke of the importance of women’s education. He claimed that American women needed an education different than that of their English and French counterparts. As wives they needed to learn how to manage a household, being guardians to their husbands’ properties. As mothers, they needed to know how to raise upright citizens. He recommended an academic curriculum that included speaking, reading, religion, grammar, writing, math, bookkeeping, geography, history, astronomy, science, singing, and dancing.

He finished the speech, which was directed toward the fathers of students and the trustees of the Philadelphia Academy, by talking directly to the women in the audience.

“To you, therefore, young ladies, an important problem is committed for solution; that that is, whether our present plan of education be a wise one and whether it be calculated to prepare you for the duties of social and domestic life.  I know that the evaluation of the female mind, by means of moral, physical, and religious truth, is considered by some men as unfriendly to the domestic character of a woman.  But this is the prejudice of little minds and springs from the same spirit, which opposes the general diffusion of knowledge among the citizens of our republics.  If men believe that ignorance is favorable to the government of the female sex, they are certainly deceived, for a weak and ignorant woman will always be governed with the greatest difficulty.” (Woloch, Nancy. Early American Women, McGraw-Hill, 1997. Page 133)

Others soon followed in principal cities and even smaller towns in both the North and South.

The establishment of the Ladies Association of Philadelphia in 1780 to aid soldiers encourage other such efforts to encourage women to play public role by performing patriotic activities, such as spinning, weaving, and sewing clothing for soldiers.

However on legal level women were largely ignored. Other than some courts adopting a more liberal stance toward woman seeking divorce there are no significant legal gains or expansion of political rights for women – and indeed some evidence of losses regarding wives’ property (prenuptial) and dower rights. 

In sum, there came to be a new ideal regarding companionate marriage, a new model for educating females, a new sense of worth among women, and an improved regard for motherhood and its civic role. However despite some small advances for women’s rights, there was still a notion of inferiority to men and the traditional ideas that women were to be passive and domestic by no means disappeared.

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