Analysis Of Carol Berkin's Revolutionary Mothers

Informed by feminist theory, Carol Berkin’s book, Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for American Independence, asserts that the Revolutionary War was not a Pleasant time period in our nation’s history. Rather it was a time of hardships for both men and woman of all classes, races and cultures. Throughout the war, the battle front was right next to home, often putting women in the center of history. In an effort to assure that after the war their loved ones had something to come home to, these women made decisions that many people did not expect from them at the time. Dr. Berkin asserts that living in a war zone brought forth complex changes and scarcity to the lives of women. These changes differed for women depending on their social standings and cultural backgrounds. The book demonstrates these differences by examining the social histories of different groups of women and the daily lives of women in each group. Dr. Berkin begins the book with an …show more content…
Their stories are told through the eyes of women such as Molly Brant, who was born a Mohawk Indian and later married the White Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the British (pg 110). Her life straddled the two worlds of the British Colonialist and that of the Native Americans. Because of her connection with White culture, more artifacts about her survive. Another Native American source for Berkin was Mary Jeminson, a White woman who was kidnapped as a youth and lived her life a Seneca woman. Her story illustrates the Native Americans’ fear that the new American nation would continue to encroach on not only their land, but their very way of life. Berkin uses these sources to demonstrate that Native American’s valued women as equal partners and full citizens, while rebels and loyalists romanticized women as the “weaker sex” even as evidence to the contrary was seen throughout the Revolutionary