The Role of Women in the American Revolution

And no, it didn't entirely consist of sitting around and sewing a flag.

The role of women in the American Revolution continues to be overlooked. There are, of course, a number of books written about the heroic acts of women during the conflict. Highways and parks have been named after a handful of them. But I guarantee you that most, if not all of those books are not on the top ten borrowed list at the library. And it is highly probable that the millions of people who travel along those named' highways do not have a clue about the women they are named for.

Mothers, wives, sisters and daughters since ancient times, and no doubt long before that, have been recorded as fighting side by side with the men. Albeit not always in the same capacity, but their passion, integrity, ferocity and courage could match that of any man. The female contribution to the American Revolution was no different. Forts were saved by young acts of true bravery, homesteads were rescued by quick thinking mothers, wives became spies, and sharp intellect was turned into satirical plays and poems dedicated to rallying support for "the independent cause". In fact, so highly respected was the female campaign that one British soldier told Lord Cornwallis that he believed "if he had destroyed all the men in North America, we should have enough to do to conquer the women!"(1)

Surely such an observation was not made in jest.

These park and highway dedications have helped to recognize the female effort of the Revolution but only in those specific areas of the country. And it is unfortunate that the cause, as a whole, has not been fully appreciated. While the victories of men on the battlefield became imbedded in our textbooks and scholastic memory, the victories of the women occurred on the frontiers, in the streets, literary circles, and the midst of battle. Many women gave up their own property and traveled great distances to solicit contributions for the armies going so far as to renounce the use of former luxuries imported from England. They turned instead to making their own clothes, brewing homemade teas and visiting the hospitals and prisons daily with handmade goods to encourage the men not to abandon the spirit for their fight for independence.

It must be understood that a large percentage of the women in colonial America were raised in an untamed land of hardships and hazards; conditions ripe for shaping independence

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