Professor Berkin illuminates how women—both supporters of American liberty and loyalists to the Crown—participated in the Revolutionary War and the challenges they faced during the period. Patriot women maintained boycotts of imported goods, joined the army disguised as men, acted as spies, and followed the Continental Army. Loyalist women were often stripped of their property as punishment for their husband’s politics. Those Loyalist women who fled to relative safety within British lines or north to Canada found themselves in unfamiliar territory, divorced from their homes and communities in a very uncertain time.
Part 1 of 8: Women as Major Participants in the Revolutionary War (8:08)
Part 2 of 8: Absence of Men Compounds the Workload for Women (4:05)
Part 3 of 8: War Creates Desperate Conditions for Women (3:41)
Part 4 of 8: Critical Role of Women in the Continental Army (5:26)
Part 5 of 8: Deborah Sampson and Other Women Who Fought (3:37)
Part 6 of 8: Women Participated in Every Phase of the Revolution (1:39)
Part 7 of 8: Esther Sewall, Grace Galloway, and other Loyalist Women (8:33)
Part 8 of 8: Costs of Fleeing to Safety for Loyalist Women (8:43)