User:Sarahdeuxtrois/Founding Mothers of the United States

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The Founding Mothers of the United States, also simply the Founding Mothers, were the women involved in the creation of the United States of America. Though they were not central to politics or soldiering like the Founding Fathers, their influence rested in their roles as mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives of the Founding Fathers and of the soldiers who fought in the American Revolution.

The inclusion of the Founding Mothers in the teaching of the American Revolution can be seen as part of the effort to diversify History education. It can also be seen as a feminist approach to education on the American Revolution

Notable Founding Mothers[edit]

Notable Founding Mothers
Name Contributions
Abigail Adams (wife of John Adams)[1] Advisor to John Adams; well known for the correspondence she and John Adams maintained during the American Revolution. [2]
Betsy Ross (niece-in-law of George Ross)[1] Creation of the first American flag is attributed to her. [3]
Mercy Otis Warren Political writer; Anti-Federalist [4]
Mary Katharine Goddard She owned the print shop that printed the first copy of the Declaration of Independence for public distribution. [3]
Deborah Sampson Gannett Soldier; She dressed as a man and enlisted in the American army under the male name Robert Shirtliffe. [3]
Margaret Corbin Molly Pitcher; Present at the Battle of Fort Washington[3]; Petitioned Congress for military pension in 1779 after being disabled by injuries received from taking her husband’s place in battle. [5]
Mary Ludwig Molly Pitcher; Present at the Battle of Monmouth. [3]
Lydia Darragh Spy; Delivered messages and information about British troops to George Washington in Philadelphia. [6]
1917 painting depicting Betsy Ross' presentation of the American flag to George Washington ("The Birth of Old Glory" by Percy Moran)

Others[edit]

Martha Washington

Contributions of the Founding Mothers[edit]

Molly Pitchers[edit]

Molly Pitchers were women who followed their husbands into the militia’s camps and into battle. They carried jugs (or ‘pitchers’) of water, which was used both as drinking water and for cooling the cannons. Molly pitchers often witnessed the deaths of their husbands, and they would frequently take over their husband’s post. [9]

Spies[edit]

Women would take advantage of the assumed inability of the female sex in order to remain unnoticed. Young girls and older women would use this to their advantage in order to carry information about the British to American Officers and Generals. [9]

Soldiers[edit]

Women would dress in men’s clothing and enlist in the army under male aliases in order to fight in the American Revolution. Records are scarce so it is difficult to conclude how many women used this strategy to fight. Deborah Sampson is a famous example of this phenomenon. [9]

Boycotts[edit]

Women used their power as participants in the economy to assist in the American Revolution’s efforts to overcome British rule. Women banded together to boycott products like tea and British cloth, especially after the passage of taxation acts, in order to thwart the British.

1775 caricature satirizing the Edenton Ladies' Agreement

Edenton Ladies’ Agreement, 1774[edit]

Over 50 women in Edenton, North Carolina signed an agreement vowing to not drink tea and to stop wearing British cloth in a sign of protest against British taxes.

Their signed document reads, “many ladies of this province have determined to give a memorable proof of their patriotism, and have accordingly entered into the following honorable and spirited association” [10]

The Edenton Agreement is one example of many such boycotts.

Republican Motherhood/Womanhood[edit]

After the end of the Revolution, the Founding Mother’s entered into a different era of nation-building. As the Founding Fathers continued to draft and frame the government of America, the Founding Mothers assumed a role as educators of American values. Republican Motherhood/Womanhood called for women to teach their children the values upon which America was founded, and to exemplify those values too. [11]

Notable Quotations[edit]

  • Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 1776

“in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies [sic] we are determined to foment a Rebelion [sic], and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.” [12]

  • South Carolina Gazette about the power of tea boycotts

“Yes Ladies, you have it in your power more than all your committees and Congresses, to strike the stroke, and make the hills and plains of America clap their hands.” [13]

  • Letter from George Washington to Annis Boudinot Stockton, 1788

“Nor would I rob the fairer Sex of their share in the glory of a revolution so honorable to human nature, for, indeed, I think you Ladies are in the number of the best Patriots America can boast.” [14]

  • Sentiments of an American Woman, Esther Reed,1780

“The time is arrived to display the same sentiments which animated us at the beginning of the Revolution, when we renounced the use of teas, however agreeable to our taste, rather than receive them from our persecutors; when we made it appear to them that we placed former necessaries in the rank of superfluities, when our liberty was interested; when our republican and laborious hands spun the flax, prepared the linen intended for the use of our soldiers; when exiles and fugitives we supported with courage all the evils which are the concomitants of war. Let us not lose a moment; let us be engaged to offer the homage of our gratitude at the altar of military valor” [15]

Depictions in popular culture[edit]

Further Reading[edit]

  • Booth, Sally Smith. The Women of ‘76. New York: Hastings House, 1973.
  • De Pauw, Linda Grant. Founding Mothers: Women in America in the Revolutionary Era. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975.
  • Ellet, Elizabeth F. The Women of the American Revolution. New York: Baker & Scribner, 1849.
  • Kerber, Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.
  • McKenney, Janice E. Women of the Constitution: Wives of the Signers. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013.
  • Norton, Mary Beth. Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1996.
  • Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980.
  • Roberts, Cokie. Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation. New York: Perennial, 2004.
  • Zall, Paul M. Founding Mothers: Profiles of Ten Wives of America’s Founding Fathers. Washington, DC: Heritage Books, 1991.

See Also[edit]

Daughters of Liberty

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Roberts, Cokie (2005). Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation. New York: Perennial. pp. 279–282. ISBN 0060090251.
  2. ^ "Adams Papers Digital Edition - Massachusetts Historical Society". www.masshist.org. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Mythbusting the Founding Mothers". National Women's History Museum. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  4. ^ a b BOTTING, EILEEN HUNT (2016). "Women Writing War: Mercy Otis Warren and Hannah Mather Crocker on the American Revolution". Massachusetts Historical Review. 18: 88–118. doi:10.5224/masshistrevi.18.1.0088. ISSN 1526-3894.
  5. ^ Berkin, Carol (1996). First Generations: Women in Colonial America. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 188. ISBN 9780809016068.
  6. ^ Berkin, Carol (1996). First Generations: Women in Colonial America. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 189-190. ISBN 9780809016068
  7. ^ Berkin, Carol (1996). First Generations: Women in Colonial America. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 189. ISBN 9780809016068
  8. ^ Berkin, Carol (1996). First Generations: Women in Colonial America. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 190. ISBN 9780809016068
  9. ^ a b c Berkin, Carol (1996). First Generations: Women in Colonial America. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 188-190. ISBN 9780809016068
  10. ^ "North Carolina Women Support a Non-importation Campaign · SHEC: Resources for Teachers". herb.ashp.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  11. ^ Berkin, Carol (1996). First Generations: Women in Colonial America. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 195-206. ISBN 9780809016068
  12. ^ "Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March - 5 April 1776". www.masshist.org. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  13. ^ Norton, Mary Beth (1980). Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 159. ISBN 9780801483479
  14. ^ "Founders Online: From George Washington to Annis Boudinot Stockton, 31 August 1 …". founders.archives.gov. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  15. ^ Boomer, Lee. "Sentiments of an American Woman". Women & the American Story. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
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