Revolutionary Mothers Summary

Words: 966
Pages: 4

Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence, a book by Carol Berkin, explains that the Revolutionary War was a time of hostility and turmoil for women and men of every race, class, and gender. As the war went on, the separation between the battle field and home became transparent, putting women in the center of it all. Berkin says that living in a war zone brought a lot of weight on the shoulders of the women, completely changing their lives. These changes affected women of all gender, race, and class. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence talks about these changes by analyzing social histories and every day lives of many different groups of women. Berkin examines every day lives of white women of the 18th century colonial society.She studied the women’s lives and how the war effected them, and that was dependent on their status in the prewar society. The daily lives of rebels differed significantly from that of a female loyalist, and so on. Berkin carefully examines these different lifestyles by …show more content…
Her arguments are supported by primary sources. To help paint a better picture of the lives of colonial women before the war, Berkin quoted the planner of a Doctor’s wife that listed twenty-one different chores from both sides of the spectrum; tidying the house to slaughtering a pig for supper (pg. 8). In order to show their discomfort, women were willing to do without a wide range of things. They even planned to boycott certain items in spite of the Stamp Act (pg. 15). Articles from the “Boston Post” on February, 12th 1710 were used to show the names of women who were for boycotting tea (pg. 15). The primary source Berkin uses demonstrates women agreeing with changing their political ideals, although most women of a certain class prefer their names not be in the