Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence is a book inciting women’s roles during the Revolutionary war and all the struggles they had to deal with and overcome. In the introduction chapter the author, Carol Berkin, discusses how in the history books they seem to tell the Revolutionary war as “both a quaint and harmless war” (Berkin, pg.ix) when in fact it was the complete opposite. When talking about this particular war no one really acknowledges the women’s role and how significant they were. The women that most people know of to be associated to the war are Abigail Adams, Betsy Ross, and Molly Pitcher but what they are known for is not accurate. With this being said, Berkin wrote this book to take a “closer
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Each chapter is like a short story of its own describing the different types of women and what their particular struggle during this time. Before the war, “colonial society ensured that women’s identity was synonymous with the roles they played: wife and mother” (Berkin, pg.6). They had no impact on anything their opinions did not matter; it was the man’s job to do everything. “As the circumstances of women’s lives grew more varied the content of the roles changed. As cities grew women adapted the repertoire of household skills to fit their urban lives. As social distinctions hardened, women of the upper classes adopted behavior that distinguished them from their poorer neighbors” (Berkin, pg.6). The women of different social classes were affected differently but no one’s struggle was any easier than the other. “For American women everywhere the hours and days and years that followed were indeed filled with distress, for the war would bring problems of inflation, scarcity, and the threat of physical violence to their towns and their doorsteps” (Berkin, pg. 27). As the men went off to war, the women stayed back with the difficulties of keeping the household together and managing the food and supplies for the family. That may not
Each chapter is like a short story of its own describing the different types of women and what their particular struggle during this time. Before the war, “colonial society ensured that women’s identity was synonymous with the roles they played: wife and mother” (Berkin, pg.6). They had no impact on anything their opinions did not matter; it was the man’s job to do everything. “As the circumstances of women’s lives grew more varied the content of the roles changed. As cities grew women adapted the repertoire of household skills to fit their urban lives. As social distinctions hardened, women of the upper classes adopted behavior that distinguished them from their poorer neighbors” (Berkin, pg.6). The women of different social classes were affected differently but no one’s struggle was any easier than the other. “For American women everywhere the hours and days and years that followed were indeed filled with distress, for the war would bring problems of inflation, scarcity, and the threat of physical violence to their towns and their doorsteps” (Berkin, pg. 27). As the men went off to war, the women stayed back with the difficulties of keeping the household together and managing the food and supplies for the family. That may not