Women of the American Revolution
Uploaded by Gotskillz on Jul 04, 2004
The Revolutionary War brought much disruption to the lives of women in America. Many of these women had to house the "Red-Coats", while others halted their lives to teach the youth of America, and some women even picked up a sword and joined the men in the fight for our country. Many of these women's "baby steps" towards freedom did not do any good, because they were still seen as inferior by the men of America. These women may have helped to change women's standing in society by inspiring women of the suffrage movement, unfortunately all of their efforts were worthless because women did not really obtain any rights until the 1920's during the women's suffrage movement. This essay will show the reader's all of the wonderful things women of the Colonial Era accomplished and how it inspired women who followed them to stand up for what they believed in.
Lydia Mintern Post was a Long Island housewife who was forced to house the "Red-Coats" during the war. Post kept a journal of her ordeal with the soldiers. She described how her life was disrupted because the soldiers would " take the fence rails to burn, so that the fields are all left open, and the cattle stray away and are often lost; burn fires all night on the ground, and to replenish them, go into the woods and cut down all the young saplings, thereby destroying the growth of ages." Even worse was the effect that these men made on her household. They lived in her kitchen, with the door to the rest of the house nailed shut. When the soldiers would receive their monthly rationing of rum she wrote of " fighting, drumming and fifing, brawls, dancing all night long, card and dice playing, and every abomination going on underneath our roof."
Post wasn't the only women who had these problems. Elizabeth Drinker underwent the same hardship. Drinker's husband was being held by the rebels in Virginia, so the pressure was on for her to take in a British soldier. Drinker resisted the request for as long as possible. She stated that on the grounds that she has the household of a "lone women" she feared the "malbehavior of British officers". However, Drinker had heard that the British would retaliate against those who would not take in an officer and so she finally gave in and welcomed...