But What Have I to Do With Politicks The Revolutionary Era

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But What Have I to Do With Politicks? The
Revolutionary Era
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gendered revolutionary rhetoric
Mother Britain vs. Child
America wealth frugality aristocracy yeoma
n farmersilks and lace simplicitysloth and
voluptuousness industrycorrupt virtuouseffe
minacy manliness

• O Britannia! Can a Woman forget her suckling
  Child, that she should not have Compassion on
  the Son of her Womb?
• Yes, they may forget But when this is the case,
  such mothers
• Monsters prove . . . They Forfeit the
  Character of True Mothers.

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contradictory images of women

• older notions of women as powerful and corrupt
  (Eve, shrew, witch)

coexist with ?

• new sentimentalized view of women as pure and
  virtuous (Virgin Mary, Pamela)

some describe principles of liberty and virtue
as feminine
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rise of revolutionary spirit

• growing resentment of British by end of French
  and Indian War (1763)
• Troops
• Taxation
• Borders

. . . my country and my friends possess so
entirely my thoughts that you must not wonder if
my pen runs beyond the dictates of
prudence Tho a female I was born a Patriot . .
.
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womens political participation (1763-1775)

• Political writing
• Mercy Otis Warren
• Boycotts
• Daughters of Liberty
• Edenton Ladies of S.C.

• Home manufacturing
• Spinning Bees, Quilting Bees
• Mob actions
• Fires, looting

Let the Daughters of Liberty nobly ariseAnd
tho weve no Voice, but a negative here,The use
of the Taxables, let us forbear.Stand firmly
resolved and bid Greenville to seeThat rather
than Freedom, well part with our Tea.
Satirical drawing depicting the "Edenton Tea
Party" published in a London Newspaper in March
1757. 
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womens participation in the war (1775-1783)

• Military Service
• Deborah Sampson
• Spies and Couriers
• Deborah Champion, Female Paul Revere
• Deputy Husbands
• Deborah Franklin (Bens Wife)

• Fundraising
• Ladies Assoc. of Philadelphia
• Camp Followers

The war offered women . . . increased
opportunities to act politically and aggressively
from within their role as housewives (54).
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remember the ladies

• Abigail Adams
• to husband John Adams
• (member of Continental
• Congress, first VP of
• United States,
• second President)
• see handout

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Republican Motherhood
revolutionary rhetoricliberty, equality,
consent of governed
traditional valuesCoverture, political
exclusion of women
Republican Motherpolitical role for women
within domestic sphere raise children (sons) to
be virtuous citizensMiddle class ideal

• Judith Sargent Murray On the Equality of the
  Sexes (1790)
• education for women
• companionate marriage
• equality with men through domestic roles

Republican Woman - Radical, unladylike-
British writer Mary Wollstonecraft- Blue
Stockings