Women in the American Revolution

This collection of excellent, carefully considered essays raises an important set of questions about gender and politics in the American Revolution and holds the potential to intervene in significant ways in a discussion that requires updating. We are long overdue for a new collection of essays on this important subject. --Carolyn Eastman, Virginia Commonwealth University, author of A Nation of Speechifiers: Making an American Public After the Revolution Women in the American Revolution brings to the fore all that we have learned in the decades since the publication of the foundational essays of Linda Kerber and Jan Lewis. Bracketed by prominent historians Rosemarie Zagarri and Sheila Skemp, the essays offer diverse and compelling stories of midwives, plantation mistresses, Loyalists, Native Americans, entrepreneurs, poets, and enslaved African Americans. --Mary Kelley, University of Michigan, coeditor of An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, 1790-1840, Volume 2, A History of the Book in America (Starred review) Since the chapters encompass perspectives from patriots along with those loyal to the Crown, readers develop a comprehensive look at gender roles and relations during this time, including voices from black women. Oberg's research shows that many of these women's stories were buried or untouched until recently.... Scholars or history lovers seeking to understand the American Revolution from a different point of view would benefit from these previously understudied stories. --Library Journal

Barbara B. Oberg is Senior Research Scholar in the Department of History at Princeton University and the coeditor, with Doron Ben-Atar, of Federalists Reconsidered (Virginia), among other books.