The American Revolution And Women's Freedom

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The American Revolution (1775-1783) was a time of great change in America. American men were fighting for their right to be free from an oppressive ruler 3000 miles away. They wanted to have their say about what went on in their own country. America won the Revolution and its freedom, but while this was going on something else was happening. Internally changes were coming about too during all this fighting. The Revolution was the catalyst for women to make progress towards freedom. Women were making economic and political gains to further women's rights.

While their husbands were away at war, the women had to work and take care of the home. Women who had never worked outside the home before had to work out in the field all day now, or if a woman lived in the city she had to get a job to support the rest of the family. During this time in the city of Philadelphia, colonial women had a job either within or outside the home, and most women worked for pay. According to Karin Wulf, "These women… helped to shape urban community and urban culture in the eighteenth-century city." Ruth Henshaw a nineteen- year old girl kept a diary focusing on her work with textiles, her school teaching and her familial and social life in 1792. , Clearly by her entries it can be seen that even girls of nineteen could hold jobs, make money and survive on their own, independent of a man if they had to or wanted to. Economic progress can also be seen in the fact that many women once widowed never remarried. "As independent women, they could act legally and economically in ways that their married sisters could not." They were able to rent property to and from their neighbors, buy and sell goods, and have a paid job outside the home. Sure, women may hav...

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... Colonies," in Major Problems in American Women's History, 3rd ed., edited by Mary Beth Norton and Ruth M. Alexander, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 52-54.

"The Patriot Esther DeBerdt Reed Describes the ‘Sentiments of an American Women,' 1780." Reprinted in Chapter 4, "The Impact of the American Revolution," in Major Problems in American Women's History, 3rd ed., edited by Mary Beth Norton and Ruth M. Alexander, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 71-73.

Wulf, Karin. "Rachel Draper's Neighborhood: Work and Community," Not All Wives: Women of Colonial Philadelphia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), 119-121, 130-148. Reprinted in Chapter 3, "The Economic Roles of Women in the Northern Colonies," in Major Problems in American Women's History, 3rd ed., edited by Mary Beth Norton and Ruth M. Alexander, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 61-68.

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