Remarkable Women of New England: Daughters, Wives, Sisters, and Mothers: The War Years 1754 to 1787

by Carole Owens

Overview

In eighteenth-century America, information about a woman’s life and accomplishments was very difficult to discover, but some woman were avid letter writers or devoted journal keepers, and thankfully some of those letters and journals were saved. These woman include Mary Gray Bidwell, a quiet country woman who had a front row seat on the war and the formation of the new nation. Elizabeth Edwards Burr whose husband founded Princeton University and her son was the second Vice President of the United States (and tried for treason). Lavinia Deane Fisk, widowed during the Revolutionary War, her second marriage triggered a fire storm that led to a revolutionary war in the Congregational Church. The Widow Bingham who fought to live as a man becoming the first woman to have a tavern license, build a business substantial enough to send her son to college and serve on formerly all-male civic committees. Abigail Williams Sergeant Dwight, a Tory: the story of the Royalists during the War is not often told. The war years changed the lives of each of these women and perhaps their lives changed our new country.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493016686
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/15/2016
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

A resident of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Carole Owens is the author of seven books, three newspaper columns, and numerous feature articles. As a local historian, Owens was named Scholar in Residence by the Massachusetts Council on the Humanities Market.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations v

Acknowledgments vii

Author's Note ix

Part 1 The Four Corners of a Woman's World 1

1 Introduction 3

2 The Homestead 9

3 The Church 27

4 The Village 57

5 The Social Circle 91

6 Women and the Law 113

7 Women and War 135

Part 2 Post War and the New Century 159

8 Revolution in Women's Lives and Roles 161

Appendices

I Importance of the French and Indian War 177

II The Revolutionary War and Property Confiscation 181

III The Revolutionary War and the Constitutionalists 183

IV Eighteenth-Century Political Parties 185

V The Constitutionalists and Shays' Regulators: A Comparison 189

VI Weakening of the Church 191

Bibliography 199

Endnotes 201

Name Index 217