Video Tag: Women

Women at War: Confronting Challenges and Hardships in the American Revolution

Holly Mayer, Benjamin Carp, Lauren Duval, Don Hagist and Carin Bloom
October 18, 2022

Women participated in the American Revolution in complex and varied ways, and the Revolution transformed their place in the new nation. This panel discussion convenes several contributors to a new anthology, Women Waging War in the American Revolution, and will be moderated by Dr. Holly Mayer, professor emerita of history at Duquesne University. Panelists Benjamin […]

“To Have The Bed Made”: Invisible Labor and the Material Culture of Nursing in the Revolutionary War

Meg Roberts
August 25, 2022

Alongside the surgeons and physicians, the medical care of the thousands of sick and wounded Continental soldiers relied upon the tireless work of army nurses, camp followers, housewives, cooks, laundresses and local families. In contrast to the voluminous records of soldiers’ and military leaders’ wartime experiences, the contribution of women has often been summarized fleetingly […]

Mercy Otis Warren’s Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous

Rachel Nellis
March 18, 2022

Research Services Librarian Rachel Nellis discusses Mercy Otis Warren’s Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous, published in 1790, that contains two plays and several allegorical or satirical poems on the Revolution that were dedicated to George Washington and praised by Alexander Hamilton.    

Cover image for Espionage and Enslavement.

Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution

Claire Bellerjeau and Tiffany Yecke Brooks
August 5, 2021

In January 1785, a young African American woman named Elizabeth was put on board the Lucretia in New York Harbor, bound for Charleston, where she would be sold to her fifth master in just twenty-two years. Leaving behind a small child she had little hope of ever seeing again, Elizabeth was faced with the stark […]

Title page of the Deborah Sampson biography, "The Female Review."

Deborah Sampson at War

Rachel Nellis
May 15, 2020

Librarian Rachel Nellis discusses Herman Mann’s The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady, a 1797 biography of Deborah Sampson, a soldier in the Massachusetts Line and one of the first female pensioners of the American Revolution. Mixing fact with romantic inventions, the book was published to support Deborah’s application for a pension, […]

Women Who Followed the Continental Army

Carol Berkin
April 10, 2014

In the popular imagination, men conducted the Revolutionary War and the Continental Army and its encampments were an all-male environment. Professor Berkin reveals that, in reality, women and children accompanied the army and provided important services to sustain it, including cooking and laundering. The presence of these women decreased desertion and supplied necessary labor, although, […]

African American Women and the American Revolution

Carol Berkin
April 10, 2014

African American women longed for freedom as much as anyone in revolutionary America, but few enjoyed its blessings. Liberty proved elusive, whether offered by the British or articulated by American revolutionaries. Some African American women in Virginia liberated themselves in response to Lord Dunmore’s proclamation, only to be sold back into slavery. Others fled to […]

Native American Women and the American Revolution

Carol Berkin
April 10, 2014

The American Revolution was many revolutions, argues Professor Berkin, transforming the lives of Native Americans while the colonists fought for independence. For many Native Americans, victory meant increased pressure from white settlers. Native American women shared their peoples’ struggles for independence and autonomy. Professor Berkin highlights the story of Molly Brant, a Mohawk woman who […]

Revolutionary Transformation of Women’s Role in Society

Carol Berkin
April 10, 2014

The Revolution transformed the role of women in American society. Law and custom in colonial America reflected the idea that women were morally inferior to men. Mothers bore and nursed their infants, but the task of teaching children right from wrong fell, at least in principle, on their fathers. Professor Berkin reveals how the Revolution […]

Daughters of Liberty and Loyalist Women

Carol Berkin
April 9, 2014

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 […]

Carol Berkin, a leader in Revolutionary era women's history, presents the vital role Patriot and Loyalist women played in the American Revolution.

Women in the American Revolution

Carol Berkin
October 25, 2013

The American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed and danger into the life of every American, women included. While men left to fight, women shouldered greater responsibility as they maintained their farms alone and tried to prevent confiscation of property. Patriot women maintained boycotts of imported goods, joined the army disguised as […]