14 - White Women and the American Revolution

Summary

Beginning in the 1760s, white women’s political activism and agency grew and developed as a result of Enlightenment theory, religious revival, and the politicization of the household economy. Revolutionary fervor created new political spaces for women as they engaged in political protests and boycotts. The circumstances of the war further refined Americans’ perceptions of women’s fortitude, political allegiance, piety, and self-direction. These factors combined to create a new foundation for white women’s participation in the republican political culture of the United States as the guardians of moral and political virtue. These new notions of women’s political connection to the state through moral authority and motherhood, however, created increasingly separate political spaces for women and men. Despite the development of women’s political agency during the Revolution, by the early 1800s many Americans began to look to the patriarchal family to restore order and social authority. Men abandoned the idea that women could be competent political actors and instead promoted a specifically masculine ideal of citizenship. State legislators and jurists revised their ideas about women’s citizenship, inheritance, and allegiance to the state. This refashioning chipped away at most claims women had to economic independence or direct political participation.