The word history can often be literally defined as "his story." However, since the late 1960s, many American scholars have focused on "herstory" (women's history). One of these pioneering historians is Mary Beth Norton, (Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society) an early Americanist at Cornell University. In 1980 she published Liberty's Daughters on the Revolutionary War's impact on American women, which became a revolutionary book in the emerging field of women's history. Norton does not focus on iconic women like the legendary Molly Pitcher who supposedly carried water to American soldiers at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. Instead, she examines eighteenth-century women across race and region (North and South) in revolutionary America and the early Republic. She has succeeded admirably, utilizing the personal papers of 450 American families in her research. Norton portrays eighteenth-century colonial American society as divided into two spheres: the public (male-controlled) and the private (or domestic), which women dominated. White women's roles were as wives in the household and household production, especially on farms. Among African American women, slavery broke apart families as blacks were bought and sold throughout the colonies. By the 1760s, amidst unrest against Great Britain, as American male leaders called for economic boycotts against the mother country, women's domestic roles took on greater political importance. As housewives, white women boycotted imported British goods such as tea and increased production of homespun cloth. Most Americans know about the Boston Tea Party, but they may not be aware about the Edenton Ladies' Tea Party of 1774, when fifty-one women in North Carolina declared their "sincere adherence" to the resolves of the Continental Congress and their "duty" to support the "public good" as Americans. Women used men's language in the struggle against British tyranny; in 1776 Abigail Adams wrote her husband (and future president) John to "Remember the Ladies" and "Remember all Men would be Tyrants if they could." The Revolution seemed empowering to most white patriot women as they raised money for the American army and supported the rebel cause. However, women faced the ugly side of the war, as many of them were forced to quarter British troops in their homes in occupied cities and towns. In short, Norton portrays the American Revolution as liberating and beneficial to most American women. True, slavery persisted after the Revolution and African American women in the South would remain in bondage until the Civil War. White women did not receive equal political representation as men in the early Republic, but they found their voice in society and built on their gains in this period, especially at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in New York, where women adopted the language of the Declaration of Independence of 1776 to their cause. Interestingly, women were granted the right to vote in New Jersey after the ratification of the Constitution, but that privilege was revoked by 1807. Women gained ground in the education reforms in the years following the Revolution, as girls' early education improved and the first female academies were founded. During the nineteenth century, women came to dominate the teaching profession. The growth of women's roles as teachers was an extension of the ideal of republican motherhood (as defined by historian Linda Kerber), in which it was a woman's civic duty to raise morally upright husbands and children as an extension of the private female sphere. (It is interesting to note that Kerber published her book on revolutionary American women, Women of the Republic, in 1980, the same year as Liberty's Daughters!) Liberty's Daughters raises key issues in women's history, first how wars (and revolutions) impact women's lives. For example, the image of "Rosie the Riveter" is a cultural symbol from the Second World War, illustrating how women were empowered during the conflict. It can be argued that the balance of work roles shifts from male to female in wartime because of men's prolonged absence from the home in combat. What is interesting in what happens to these roles after wars are over. Second, by including African American women in her study of Revolutionary America, Norton shows how female experiences differed by race and region. Women's history is divided by race, region, and class. The field of women's history has grown considerably since the publication of Liberty's Daughters, but Norton's book remains a classic on how the American Revolution changed the lives of eighteenth-century American women. Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. New York: Cornell University Press, 1980, 1996)
1 Comment
Michael White
5/4/2017 12:59:48 pm
Best review yet. Really well done.
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CategoriesAuthorTom Schmidt lives in Prescott Valley, AZ. Archives
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