Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800

xvi, 384 pp. From the Blurb: Liberty's Daughters, the first book to explore the impact of the American Revolution on women, dramatically refutes the widely held belief that colonial women enjoyed a golden age of equality with men before drifting off into Victorian helplessness. Citing the letters, diaries, poems, and other writings of eighteenth-century Americans, prize-winning historian Mary Beth Norton reveals that colonial men and women actually disparaged feminine duties. In the latter part of the book Norton concludes that the Revolution had significant consequences for women-the American notion of womanhood broadened, and Republicanism bestowed a new patriotic importance on women's domestic labors. Comparing the private papers of more than 450 American families-black and white, urban and rural, Northern and Southern, rich and poor-Norton documents the status of women before, during, and after the Revolution.