Carol Berkin's Revolutionary Mothers

The struggle for American independence was never a men-only affair. The struggle was characterized by a revolution that was a home-front war. As the men were actively involved in the front battle fights, women also took part in a revolution that brought bloodshed, scarcity and danger into the lives of all Americans. Carol Berkin in her book Revolutionary Mothers demonstrates the significant roles played by women during the conflict. In the book is a story of three popular women, namely; Betsy Ross, Molly Pitcher and Abigail Adams, who survived the fateful ordeal of the American Revolution. They took part in the war, playing different roles that in one way or the other contributed to the success after the war. Berkin also notes multitude of

forgotten women apart from the trio without whom the war would have been impossible. While Carol Berkin’s illustrations shed new light on vital roles played by the women during the American Revolution, her assertion that women merely served as eternal helpers to men does not adequately explain the efforts of women in the struggle for America’s Independence.
In her arguments, Berkin does not recast women as the main Revolution proponents, but rather on the emphasis on central essential elements in view.

Berkin’s main argument is based on the assertion that women’s roles before, during and after the American Revolution was primarily secondary to men as helpmates. She weaves four key elements through her argument by, first, including several succinct examples of brave actions undertaken by women during the war. And second, illustrating women’s role as surrogate husbands at homes with their men away at war. In her third element, she demonstrated women’s political participation in the war. And lastly Berkin demonstrates the changing perspectives of roles played by women as brought about by the

war.
The women, often ordinary, endured the war to help the colonies survive during the eight-year revolution. Every choice that they made had significant political repercussions. The women boycotted British goods and also span their clothes. While their men were away in combat, they managed the farms and family businesses to keep their families alive. They also sewed shirts for the soldiers, helped to finance a fledgling government, wrote propaganda broadsides and infiltrated the enemy lines as spies. As if not enough, they also joined the army dressed as men in the combat battlefields to fight and assist the men, for example, Deborah Sampson. They, however, suffered lots of humiliation and deprivation when all their household possessions and livestock were looted and seized by the British troops.
As spies, we see a bravery, action of Lydia Darragh, a housewife who risked her safety, travelled to Philadelphia to relay attack intelligence reports to the Washington Army for them to get prepared for looming British attack (Carol, 2005, pp. 139-41). Berlin also tries to illustrate the roles of slave women and Native American during the war, most of whom never left records of their efforts. Thousands of them cooked, washed, nursed and also served as sexual partners for the soldiers. Yet Berkin also discloses that it was not just the men alone fighting at the front lines that were crippled for life. Margaret Corbin was crippled when she took the position of her husband in a war near a cannon at Fort Monmouth.
Other women remained loyalist women so as to in the best way they could in the face of a community of exile and hostility. Most of the loyalists opted to vacate their communities instead of living with the enemies and moved to such far-off places as Canada. They also had a choice of resistance, and some of them chose to while serving as spies and hid their money and property from authorities or hid their husbands from arrest. The Native Americans never participated much. However, some of them were farming, weaving and spinning in an attempted reversal of their cultural mores with respect to gender roles. Previously, African American women had hoped for more positive gain from the inception of the war, but the majority of them remained as slaves. They, however, played important roles in catering, cooking, and cleaning.
However, most of the women participants never remained in the political spheres, and they were instead honored as seamstresses for making clothing for soldiers.

This depicts their return to traditional roles. In as much as most of the women returned to their traditional roles, others like Judith Murray, and Abigail Adams started pushing for enhanced women's political participation and property rights.

Otherwise, they started receiving a different perception from men in that it was positive. After the war, men could allow women to manage homes, run farms and businesses. Sometimes they could handle all of these duties together. This means that property rights became closer within their reach. The efforts of such women as Abigail was a proof of talents of women to be having more abilities beyond household obligations. After the revolution women were granted more rights than in the past.

Whereas Berkin concludes that most of the women were generally focused on extending their roles as housewives in a political arena, she emphasizes that their efforts provided the possibility of a rise of female politicians in the following

periods.
I have been particularly surprised by impressed by the salient women's contribution of women to the fight for American Independence. While most men could manage to go the battlefields, such efforts as nursing, fund raising by the Ladies Association and all of the roles played provided essential stepping stones towards the victory for independence. I believe that the battle challenges could have been more gruesome without their effort.
Revolutionary Mothers is, therefore, a worthwhile book for educators and historians with perfect examples that Bergin gives in consideration for the women’s contributions and roles during the revolution. The readers are able to appreciate such efforts by women in the struggle for American independence and recognize the important building blocks that have seen the evolution of women’s roles and rights.