After studying women and gender history in early America for the past semester, my views about American history have changed tremendously. Having very little prior experience with history, I had many assumptions and preconceived notions from high school history classes. Women were never even mentioned in my previous learning about U.S. history, so I assumed they took on unimportant roles and had little, if any, impact on shaping our country’s history. However, after this semester of delving deeply into the women of early America, I could not have been more incorrect. Although they were not typically in the public realm, we cannot fully understand history without studying women. The following readings uncovered the roles of women in the private sphere and were crucial to my new understanding of the importance of women in American history by bringing women to the forefront.
“Revolutionary Mothers Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence,” is a book written by Carol Berkin. In this writing, Berkin goes into detail on the important role women of the 1600s-1700s took place during the Home Front War. Berkin argues that it wasn’t just the men who fought for independence, but women fought for freedom as well. The book describes the roles that different women faced, the challenges women faced, and women’s capabilities during the war.
In her essay, “Context” (1994), Dorothy Allison states that knowing a person well and deeply depends on and requires personal knowledge of their upbringing and social life. The essay was published as a memoir to reflect on people’s perception about others. Dorothy employs flashbacks and comparison in order to express her opinions on understanding, trusting and judging a person. She uses flashback and comparison to show that context provides a varied angle about a person. She further argues that, when not properly understood, it can easily breed rivalry between people from varied social backgrounds. Dorothy writes her essay to a general audience and expresses her opinions about context, upbringing environment, and a social group having a fundamental role in a person’s character.
As the saying goes, “a woman’s work is never done,” but today’s women live a far different life than their predecessors. The women of the revolution were courageous and brave-hearted. The obstacles of their time were far more difficult to overcome than those faced by women in this day and age. Whether it was slavery, war, or racial prejudice, these women kept their heads held high and worked to break down these barriers and create change for the future. On top of having to deal with these hardships, the women of the revolution had families to take care of, mouths to feed, houses to clean, and wounds to heal. For many women of the revolution it was all about taking a stand for their rights and being
In First Generations Women in Colonial America, Carol Berkin demonstrates the social, political, and economic circumstances that shaped and influenced the lives of women during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the colonies. In exploring these women’s lives and circumstances it becomes clear that geography, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, and other factors less fixed such as war each influenced a woman’s experience differently and to varying degrees. In doing this, Berkin first showcases the life of a specific woman and then transposes that life onto the general historical framework and provides a context in which this woman would have lived. The lives of these women exemplified is also explored and demonstrated through the use of comparison to highlight their different experiences. Moreover, this analysis also seeks to identify the varied sources of these women’s power, albeit for many this power was limited. The analysis is broken up primarily by geography, then by race, and lastly by time and war. While these factors provide the overarching context of analysis, more specific factors are also introduced.
Carol Berkin clearly states her thesis in the introduction of Revolutionary Mothers. “Despite the absence of radical changes in gender ideology and gender roles for most women, the Revolution did lend legitimacy to new ideas about women’s capacities and their proper roles”. (Berkin 2005) In two thousand and fourteen it is questionable about how clearly women’s roles have changed especially in the areas of economics and politics at least it is obvious that the revolution did not bring equality.
The book Revolutionary Mothers, by Carol Berkin is a truth telling and eye opening experience for the reader that shows how the fight for America’s independence affected the role of women. The book reveals the unknown side of women during young America’s first major war, the Revolutionary War. It portrays the very important role women played during war despite the fact that war brought scarcity, bloodshed, and danger into their lives. Women’s lives changed drastically during this time period.
A critical analysis entails the review of the book Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the struggle for America’s independence by Carol Berkin. This comprised of details on women who had been involved in struggling to fulfill the independence of America. Women played their role at facing or creating impact towards the war. This outlines on myriad of women,s lives as well as getting to know the obstacles that they encountered during the war. This aids in bringing out the idea that not only men who played vital roles during the war, but also women as being key characters, inclusive of colonial women as well as Native American women and the consequences they faced. Women brought about a generation of having the initial tale of history avoiding rise of different stories thus the book,s intention was to reveal the truth of the history as well as women importance during the revolutionary war.
The role of women in American history has evolved a great deal over the past few centuries. In less than a hundred years, the role of women has moved from housewife to highly paid corporate executive to political leader. As events in history have shaped the present world, one can find hidden in such moments, pivotal points that catapult destiny into an unforeseen direction. This paper will examine one such pivotal moment, fashioned from the fictitious character known as ‘Rosie the Riveter’ who represented the powerful working class women during World War II and how her personification has helped shape the future lives of women.
Osborn and her fellow female commandants of war became true patriots, veterans devoted to a cause they imagined worthy of a fight. While it may seem easy to speculate her deposition as mere hearsay or engorged fabrications of an elderly woman, many claims Sarah Osborn purports are verifiable and unrequitedly true. Throughout this work I will, where reasonably necessary, corroborate Osborn's claims with that of others' similar testimony. The study of this document will mainly comprise of the role Sarah Osborn played, using her accounts of the years 1780 through the surrender of Yorktown in 1781, with contextual additions explaining social aspects of women during this era. To further this study and supply a deeper and thorough contextualization, the research and importance of other known accounts of women involved in the war serve as supplementing points to the main theme presented by Sarah Osborn's testimony. These studies along with my own interpretations of Sarah Osborn's deposition will hopefully create a view of life during the Revolution far too often unseen; that of a completely female perspective. I will attempt to show that they, as much as anyone, helped fight for, create, and maintain a union during crisis.
Molly was a common nickname for women named Mary. The nickname ‘Molly Pitcher’ most likely came from the soldiers, when they needed water they’d yell “Molly - pitcher!” Which explains why she is known by that name. The believed springs that people think Molly and the followers fetched water from are now named ‘Molly Pitcher
Carol Berkin’s "Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America's Independence" is an excellent book that I immensely enjoyed. When many people think of the Revolutionary War, they might imagine George Washington gallantly leading his men through the winters at Valley Forge or the like. Berkin begins her masterpiece by giving a general overview of the roll that women played in our countries war for independence. Now I, like many others come to think of the iconic role model women like Betsy Ross and the fabled Molly Pitcher, but this star of a book opened my eyes to the everyday
"Literature Online Chapter 43 -- Biography." Student Resources. 2001. Pearson Education. 23 Feb. 2005 < http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/kennedycompact_awl/chapter43/objectives/deluxe-content.html >.
Molly Pitcher was a legendary figure in history, her status was presented to her in the Revolutionary War, where she courageously took over the job of her unconscious husband. Pitcher was born in a small town near Trenton, New Jersey on October 13, 1744. It is likely that she never attended school or learned to read, as education was considered a waste of money on young girls at this time. She then moved to Pennsylvania when she was just a young teen and married William Hayes. In 1778 her husband, WIlliam Hayes, had to join the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and while he was firing the cannon in the battle of Monmouth, Courthouse on July 12, he collapsed of 100 degree heat or he was wounded, it's still unknown, so she took over
The History of Mary Prince was a seminal work of the nineteenth century, which today remains an important historical device. Mary Prince’s story is not unique, but the circumstances and context surrounding her novel are. Defying contemporary standards and beliefs, The History of Mary Prince demonstrates the atrocities of slavery, but also a distinctive and deliberate political message. The History of Mary Prince is not only important for its demonstration of human suffering and the legal history it documents, but it also offers insight into the British abolition movement. Twofold, it remains an important text through both its straightforward portrayal of facts and experience as well as its underlying careful manipulation of political and moral themes. The History of Mary Prince served as an influential abolitionist piece of writing, but furthermore can incite multiple layers of interpretation and analysis of the abolition movement.