Liberty's Daughters Analysis

In her journal article, “The Evolution of White Women’s Experience in Early America,” Mary Beth Norton submits there is a common misconception that the initial empowerment of 17th and 18th century Colonial America women was completely and solely influenced by the unique economic factors and disrupted social framework of New World life--arguing instead that this revolution of empowerment was the result of a more complex set of factors.. Thus, as Colonial American society was one in which all members of the family had to work together in order to survive, it has been

Consumed with the desire to gain liberty and equality, Americans fought for changes in their society resulting in the American War for Independence. Unfortunately the fight for independence did not bring liberty and equality to all Americans. Native Americans, African slaves, and women continued under the control of those with more money and power, which mainly included white, property owning men. As time went on the young American Republic continued to fight for ideals independence eventually making a revolutionary change in the way American’s live.

With the development of the Ladies of Liberty in Document D, “colonial women played a significant role in the American Revolution”. They aided with the boycotting of British goods and participated in the movements of homespun clothing and non-importation. Colonial women would sew clothes for their families, out of cotton and wool to support the Revolution. As well as participating in these movements, women also began to gain confidence and power within themselves. In Document D, Abigail Adams writes to her husband recalling events witnessed that day involving the women of Massachusetts. After a rude, “stingy” merchant refuses to sell them coffee at an affordable price, “some hundred [women] assembled with a cart…marched down to the warehouse, and demanded [the merchant’s] keys”. After refusing, they “seized him by the neck, tossed him into the cart”, obtaining his keys as well as his gallons of coffee. They “hoisted” the coffee in their trunks and drove away leaving a crowd of men bewildered and shocked. While this document was targeted towards Abigail’s husband John Adams, he was a growing influence within American society, further solidifying the role of male domination. Her letter/ recollection of the scene only demonstrated the growing confidence and power within the community of colonial women at the time but in no way did the white

Chapter six talks about how women bravely handled the situation during the revolutionary war. They were very loyal to their husbands and to the colonial society. “Many women chose to leave their communities rather than remain in the midst of their enemies.” (98)

In the book Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society by Mary Beth Norton, she explores not only the initial formation of the American colonies, but also how it related to the family unit, which was quite important to both English society and the one forming in the colonies. This text, which explores the time period from 1620 to 1670 is written in three parts, each centered on a family or individual who defied the traditional societal norms as well as analyzing the ways in which the colonies dealt with these dissenters from the social norms. The book begins however with an explanation of the view of the world that the colonists likely lived by when they first arrived on American shores, as well as its lack of female influence, and how it would eventually change to something not unlike what we have in our society today.

During the Revolution women whose husbands were fighting for freedom played a significant role in the Emancipation of women. On March 31, 1776 Abigail Adams wife of John Adams, wrote a letter to her husband who was in Philadelphia in the Continental Congress. The letter shows the dire circumstances women were steeped in. She reminded her husband to ‘Remember the Ladies’. “We will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness” (Maclean 1).

Benjamin Franklin once said “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” The quote represents how the Sons of Liberty were all in, and there was no backing down to the British. They fought together and they were going to die together as long as they fought for what’s right. The Sons of Liberty attempted peaceful solutions to the taxations from the king, fought for what they believed in, and were just acting out against the king in self-defense which shows the Sons of Liberty are patriotic leaders, not terrorists.

The United States during and after the American Revolution was wrought with tremendous societal change and massive upheaval. A new republic emerged with grandiose ideas of civil liberties coupled with intense debates on the inalienable rights of men. As intellectuals across the country debated amongst themselves naturally questions about gender began to spring about. Although the new republic proudly proclaimed that all men were created equal, some, particularly affluent women, began to question what this meant for women in particular. One individual, both a prominent writer and political activist at the time, sought to challenge these preconceived notions of what women’s role in life should be. That individual was none other than Judith Sargent Murray.

This focus is particularly clear in the chapters concerning the war itself. Kerber’s approach changes the picture of women in the Revolution from including strictly prominent wives and flag-sewers to encompassing everyday women who planned no gender revolution but instead sought safe homes with their husbands and without communal transplant. In her chapter “Sacrifice and Survival,” Kerber tells the story of a community in Wilmington, where loyalties were divided during the Revolution. When the British occupied Wilmington, they temporarily expelled patriot women and families from their homes, so the American army gave the same order to loyalist families when they retook the city in 1782. The patriot women of Wilmington promptly signed a petition protesting the order, affirming their political inadequacy (“It is not the province of our sex to reason deeply upon the policy of the order”) before writing that the Americans sought to harm “the helpless and innocent” (52). The patriots’ petition also explained that the loyalist wives of Wilmington had no role in their own previous expulsion. While striving against expulsion is evidently not inherently political, this story presents an example both of women joining together to protect each other from the war’s collateral damage and of colonial wives taking action against a policy that they found unjust. Such a broad example

The rights and freedoms that women enjoy today did not come without struggle, and currently there is nowhere in the world women are treated equally to men. Henceforth the 17th hundreds women have been trying to affirm their position in the fabric of America. Early public policies treated wives and mothers as wards of their husbands and women in general were not considered citizens under the Constitution of the United States, the founding document referred of “men created equal”. Women were oppressed by gender and could not legally acquire land ownership, enter into contracts, initiate legal actions, acquire bank loans and wives that worked, their husbands controlled their money. Furthermore, women were barred from higher education, many professions and, public offices according to

It is a well-known fact that women wanted more freedoms and that they deserved the same rights of men. According to Tindall and Shi (2013), the legal status of women in the colonies was governed by British common law, which essentially treated them like children, limiting their roles to the domestic sphere. Women had a very limited range of things that they could do, things that they could not do included: voting or having a place in office, preaching, and many did not have a formal education. Women could not buy or sell anything and also any money that the women made did not belong to them and it actually belonged to their husbands. Not only did the revolution affect the men, it also affected the women.

Of course there were many important changes that occurred during and after the revolution for the ladies, that should not be neglected. During the Townshend Acts, they were active contributors by making homespun clothing to boycott British imports and homespun clothing quickly became a marker of one’s virtue and patriotism, and women were an important part of this cultural shift . The term “Republican Motherhood” was used to describe the early American belief that women were essential in nurturing the principles of liberty to the next generation. Women became an important part of

In today’s era, women are viewed as independent significant members of society. They are allowed to hold a career, vote, pursue an education wherever they want, have access to birth control, buy homes and so much more. Women have so much more freedom today than they used to. For many years’ women had to fight for the same rights as men. This essay will discuss the oppression society placed on women and how they advanced in social positioning throughout the years. Women’s advancements in society can be seen within the writings of some great American scholars who have lived throughout these eras.

During the colonial era, white women saw little change in how they were viewed in society. The only thing that society saw the colonial women doing was to “devote their lives to being good wives and mothers” (GML 126). Women had no voice in their households, men were the leaders of the home, and women took care of the children and the house. In politics, colonial women had no say, they were considered under control of their husbands, thus giving them no right to be involved in political matters. When the Townshend Act was put in place, many women sewed at home to save on having to buy new clothes. Because of this very small “rebellion” against this act, The Daughters of Liberty was founded, it was comprised of “women that wove and spun at home” (GML 184). Compared to the colonial women, Native American women had a much greater involvement in society. The Native American women, like colonial women, were mostly in charge of the household. Along with taking care of the household, the women were working in the field. This was not taken well by the Europeans, many of the white men thought that Native men were weak, because the women worked. Unlike the non-existent role that colonial women had in

“On Liberty” is an essay composed by a man named J.S. Mill who talks about the different types of liberty given to individuals. The novel in divided up into five chapter stating different liberties or responsibilities that makes someone a responsible self. There is no real definition of what could be considered a responsible self but all the duties one has is what composes this person into what Mill believes one should be. These responsibilities are first to oneself, to others, and finally to society as a whole.