I. Does anything really change?
- Coverture remains intact
- Women do not gain new property rights
- Women do not gain the vote
- One exception: New Jersey
- Law granted suffrage to all inhabitants worth 50 pounds, irrespective of race/sex
- 1807: Property requirement revoked; suffrage explicitly limited to white men
- In general, women do not depart from their traditional roles during the war
- Experience does not generate collective consciousness as women–necessary precondition for a woman’s rights movement
II. Brom and Bett v. Ashley
- One of the first “freedom suits” brought in MA
- “Bett” or Mum Bett was a slave of John Ashley
- Ashley’s home was where the Sheffield Resolves were drawn up in Jan. 1773
- Precursor to the Declaration of Independence
- “Mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty and property.”
- Precursor to the Declaration of Independence
- Though illiterate, Bett had heard the resolves being read and sought help of lawyer Thomas Stockbridge
- Changed her name to Elizabeth Freeman
III. Slaves and free blacks in the Revolutionary era
- Some slaves fled to the British, who promised emancipated; others embraced revolutionary ideals, fought with the colonists
- Questioning of institution of slavery
- By 1804, all northern states had set up procedures for emancipation
- Most southern states repealed laws that prevented private manumission of slaves
- George Washington’s will manumitted his slaves
- But Washington and others reluctant to accept blacks as soldiers
- Some 5,000 fought, but Washington banned further enlistment in Oct. 1775
- Provided a new model of black male citizenship
- Black women as camp followers
- Some 5,000 fought, but Washington banned further enlistment in Oct. 1775
- Aftermath of Revolution made limitations starkly apparently
IV. Impact on revolutionary climate, politics
- Women’s domestic roles and activities took on new significance
- Women exposed to new political ideas, new languages of rights and duties
- Revolution laid the groundwork for improvements in girls’ education
- Crucial for the eventual rise of the woman’s rights movement
- Crucial for the eventual rise of the woman’s rights movement
V. Civic republicanism
- A republic requires virtuous citizens
- Emphasis on self-sacrifice and the common good
- To exercise virtue, citizens must be disinterested
- Must be independent and self-governing
- Thus, slaves, women, children, servants, poor cannot exercise civic virtue
- Some scholars claim that civic republicanism reinforced women’s subordination
- Idea that men’s independence required women’s dependence
- Idea that men’s independence required women’s dependence
VI. Classical liberalism
- Emphasis on individual “liberty”
- Private property essential to individual liberty
- Laissez-faire economics – Idea that rational self-interest and competition enhance the general welfare
- Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” (1776)
- Incorporated the idea of the “social compact” (or “contract”)
- People give up some rights for social order
- Consent of the governed
- Terms of women’s exclusion
- Neither civic republicanism nor classical liberalism suggested that women could be full citizens, exercising equal rights
- Was women’s exclusion inherent to the ideology, or simply a reflection of the social realities of the day?
- In other words, was the problem with the ideas themselves or their implementation?
Historian Linda Kerber: “The construction of the autonomous, patriotic male citizen required that the traditional identification of women with unreliability, unpredictability, and lust be emphasized. Women’s weakness became a rhetorical foil for republican manliness.”
VII. Women’s wartime experiences
- Serving as “deputy husbands”
- Husbands gradually granting wives more responsibility
- Relationships gradually shifted
- Cases of Abigail Adams; Rebecca Pickering
- Supporting boycotts
- Role of household manager enhanced and newly politicized
- Reviving home production
VIII. Women as petitioners
- Signing statements declaring their support for the Revolutionary cause
- Edenton Resolution (1774)
- “…a duty we owe, not only to our dear connections but to ourselves.”
- “…a duty we owe, not only to our dear connections but to ourselves.”
- Edenton Resolution (1774)
IX. Supporting the Continental Army
- Efforts of Philadelphia women in 1780
- Esther Reed, Ladies’ Association of Philadelphia
- “Sentiments of an American Woman”: “Our ambition is kindled by the same of those heroines of antiquity, who have rendered their sex illustrious, and have proved to the universe, that, if the weakness of our Constitution, if opinion and manners did not forbid us to march to glory by the same paths as the Men, we should at least equal, and sometimes surpass them in our love for the public good.”
X. Legacies
- Politicized women’s domestic roles
- Paved the way for the glorification of domesticity in 19th century
- New ideology of Republican motherhood
- Indirect political role: mothers raise virtuous citizens
- Rationale for improvement in female education
- Granted women more authority within the household
Mary Beth Norton: “In my opinion, the Revolution had an indelible effect upon American women, but its consequences cannot for the most part be discovered in the public world of law and politics, where they have previously been sought. The postrevolutionary years brought no widespread reform of legal codes, no universal enfranchisement of women, no public feminist movement. Instead, the 1780s and 1790s witnessed changes in women’s private lives–in familial organization, personal aspirations, self-assessments. In short, the Revolution’s impact is more accurately revealed in an analysis of women’s private writings than in an examination of formal actions implemented by men.”