Women's Rights and the American Revolution
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

In the decade leading up to American independence, white women took on crucial roles in a series of boycotts, petitions, and protests. During the long war that began in 1775, they were also indispensable. As wives and mothers, they encouraged their husbands and sons to enlist, and then managed households and family businesses in their absence. The struggle for independence had allowed American women to assert themselves as political actors as never before. Would they happily resume their apolitical domestic roles after the war? Or would they demand to be recognized and directly represented in the new political order? This lecture, led by University of Maryland historian Richard Bell, explores these questions by examining the struggle to define white women's place in politics, voting, and public leadership.