American Revolution Women's Roles Essay

The American Revolution was a war between colonists and the British that depended on women and their roles to carry out their many duties for the men in the war. This war brought much danger into the lives of the women and men in America. Americans faced scarcity, death, and poverty. During the American Revolution, women, while battling racial and class boundaries, faced many dangers such as rape and destruction of their homes, while serving as caregivers, helpmates, nurses, cooks, maids, and soldiers to both the colonists and the British.
Women served many different roles during the American Revolution, and also served both the colonists and the British in each of these roles. Originally, women served traditionally as only wife and mother,
until the cities they lived in began growing (6). To keep up with all of their work, the fertility of women was especially important so they could give birth. It was just as vital to women’s lives as their productivity that they give birth and raise children to help on the farms as additional labor (7). These women were considered helpmates and “surrogate husbands” during the American Revolution due to the help they gave the men and the amount of children they gave birth to (11).
With the cities growing, women began adapting household skills to fit their urban lives, which then classified them as “helpmates to men” (6).
The skill sets that the women had were essential to everyone living during the American Revolution. As helpmates, women had to focus on skills that surrounded the house, garden, and hen house, where they would spend their time “processing the raw materials their husbands produced into usable items such as food, clothing, candles, and soap” (6). The role of women is very important throughout the American Revolution because men needed them to do tasks they couldn’t do while they were at war. Eventually, these women got “caught between the older ideal of ‘notable housewife’ and the newer ideal of ‘pretty gentlewoman’” (8). Although not very happy about it, the women needed to serve the men in order to have places to live and not risk
starvation.
Some women also served as nurses during this time. One woman in particular gathered a group of loyalists who were wounded, dressed them up as women, and nursed them right in her home until they were feeling well (101). Women cared a great deal about the men at war and wanted to make sure they were taken care of. Before the Revolution, women used their leisure time for themselves, but once the American Revolution came, everything changed. Women were now making choices that were more politicized by earning money for and nursing the troops back to health (154). Of course women would rather be reading or helping their children and focus on raising them correctly, but the women had no time other than to help the men and put their children to work.
The colonists and the British also had women serve as seamstresses, cooks, washerwomen, and maids. One woman in particular, Margaret Morris, fed and took care of soldiers that were both British and American (39). Margaret had a soft heart for the soldiers and felt that it was best to help anyone she could, despite whichever uniform they were wearing. The washerwomen were of great importance. Without the washerwomen, the camps acted as a breeding ground for numerous diseases because of the lack of sanitation (58). Having women as cooks, men were able to eat food without worrying about preparing it after being at war. These women worked very hard to ensure that the men at war were being taken care of.
A couple of women even served a role as soldiers by disguising themselves and enlisting in the army. Most of them could not go without being unnoticed, except for Deborah Sampson and Sally St. Clair. Deborah’s role as Private Robert Shurtleff lasted for many years and after they discovered her sex, she was honorably discharged and granted a veteran’s pension (61). Sally St. Clair was able to keep her sex hidden until her death in 1782 (61). These women are a great example of how brave women were during the American Revolution and how badly they wanted to help during the war.
The class and race of these women greatly affected their lives during the war because they were treated differently based on how they were classified. These women, whether they were born poor or rich, encountered limitations on their “economic independence, legal identity, and access to positions of formal authority” (4). Therefore, women were eventually nudged into marriage because of these limitations and were not classified as reaching adulthood until reaching this marriage point also known as spinsterhood (5).
During the first few years of the settlement of Birchtown, a racial and class hierarchy was established that determined the rations provided to the 2,500 newly freed women and men refugees (129). The racial and class hierarchy made things very difficult for the African Americans. Although white officers and men were the first of the hierarchy, and the white veterans along with the working people coming right after, they were all still unhappy about not getting the land grants that they were promised (129). Eventually, the blacks gave up their hope after being desperate for farmland and move to areas that they could get a job with low pay (130). Even with jobs, the blacks could not be happy.
The race of African Americans was especially important in that slavery was actually accepted. Blacks served as slaves and were facing a wide range of tasks from working in tobacco fields in Virginia, to working in Philadelphia at well-designed homes, and in South Carolina working in the rice paddies (120). Despite where the African Americans lived, they faced many struggles and suffered challenging lives. During the American Revolution, it didn’t matter whether African Americans were free or considered a slave because they still struggled to preserve their family bond (121). They found it difficult to take care of their family since they were either working or not able to live with their family.
There are many dangers that these women faced during the American Revolution.
One danger was the destruction of their homes and properties as strategies to pull information from the victims or to see if families were spying in favor of the enemies (38). Women spent a majority of their time working on their homes and properties but feared the possibility of their homes being destroyed, whether by the British or by themselves. Since women were considered part of the political minority, there was a lack of support from neighbors, family members, and friends when the mob decided to attack in Pennsylvania and the Carolinas
(98).
These women also faced loneliness, poverty, fear of starvation, the possibility of rape or death at the hands of hostile invading troops, therefore most of them were driven to join the armies (52). It was rarely spoken about, but a big danger that these women faced was rape. It was known by the women that with the military present, rape was a possibility for women as well as physical humiliation (39).
Although these women faced many dangers, they still decided to provide for the men in the armies and work for them. While facing racial and class discrimination, they served a huge role in the American Revolution as wives, mothers, helpmates to men, camp followers, washerwomen, nurses and more. It would be difficult to imagine what the American Revolution would have been like without the wonderful women helping everyone with tasks that they otherwise would be struggling to fit into their day while also being at war.