“Liberty’s Daughters” by Mary Beth Norton

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The brief basic plot of the book
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

The author of the book, Mary Beth Norton is a professor of American History. She works at the Department of History in Cornell University. Norton specializes in women’s studies and history of the American women during 1760-1850. She graduated University of Michigan and received a Master’s and Ph.D. (1965) from Harvard University. Norton’s doctoral dissertation analyzes the role and position of the British-Americans. The book, Liberty’s Daughters was first published in 1980. Norton won numerous grants and fellowships, published dozens of articles in such journals as American Historical Review and Signs.

The brief basic plot of the book

The book portrays and analyzes position of women and heroic deeds during the Revolutionary period. Norton portrays that mobilization of women is a significant index of the vigor of any revolutionary movement. Societies at war are societies engaged in a renegotiation of gender relations. Only in recent decades have U.S. historians begun seriously to evaluate the mobilization of women and to consider the ways in which relations between men and women changed in the era of the American Revolution. The American Revolution accomplished a radical transformation in the relationship of ruler and ruled. Patriots deconceptualized both the sovereign and the subject. The Continental Congress, which began in 1774 as a cooperative assembly of colonial representatives, was transformed into the new nation’s permanent governing body. While making all of major changes in the public law, patriot legislatures and conventions retained two systems of inherited laws: the lawmakers strengthened the law of slavery and they continued the old law of domestic relations. The book consists of 20 chapters devoted to different activities and historical events of this period. A special attention is given to “tea Party” and the Battle of Bunker Hill. Also, Norton involves analysis of the most famous women including DeLancey, Manigault, Inman, etc.

This a history book portrays and analysis the role and importance of women struggle and their contribution to the Revolution. Norton uses a lot of primary documents and evidence to portray a real woman during this period of time. She underlines that into the new democratic order they imported the hierarchical relationships between master and slave, and the considerably softer, but still hierarchical, traditional relations between husband and wife. Ulrich (23) shares the same position and states that the meaning of American citizenship was thereby gendered and racialized; from the beginning it was composed differently for men and women, white and black. These continuations of prerevolutionary social relationships mark the limits of revolutionary creativity. Women as well as men had a new relationship to civil authority. Norton writes: “and a familiar environment for women left alone is further confirmed when the focus shifts from widowed loyalists to the patriots who called themselves temporary widows – those women whose husbands had joined the American army” (214).

Norton persuades readers that American women entered the revolutionary era convinced that men and women have different social responsibilities. For men, political institutions-the army, the militia, the state legislatures, the Continental Congress, organizations of artisans-facilitated collective experience. But only Quaker churches had separate women’s meetings, and Quakers, whose opposition to violence as a route to social change had the practical effect of aligning them with the English, were not usable as a political model for patriots. Similar ideas were discussed and proved by Berkin who underlines that the political language of the patriots, inherited from the republicanism of Renaissance city-states and from English political tradition, reserved citizenship for men who had independent control of property and the ability to bear arms in the defense of the republic.

Female imagery was used to describe what Americans should scorn: Britain was a cruel mother; virile men avoided effeminacy. Yet the American Revolution was preeminently a crisis of authority. A democratizing society and a patriarchal family were discordant; in fact, patriot ideology challenged patriarchal relationships. Patriots excoriated the father figure of George III-in print, and also by destroying statues of the king. Denial of patriarchy infused a popular literature that called on women to assert their right to choose their own husbands and to demand of these men friendship and cooperation within marriage. In July 1778, Abigail Adams reported that “a Number of Females, some say a hundred, some say more, assembled with a cart and trucks, marched down to the Ware House” of an “eminent, wealthy, stingy” Boston merchant who was rumored to be hoarding coffee. The private roles of wife and mother came to be articulated as having an important political dimension. The republic relied on women to choose only virtuous men for husbands and on mothers to socialize the next generation of virtuous citizens. “Female patriots “deserve as much reputation as their husbands and posterity will thicken laurels on their monuments” (Norton 225).

I agree with Norton that women patriots made a great contribution to the revolution and political ideas of this period. Indeed, while men were encouraged to claim the fruits of independence in their private lives and economic undertakings, women were simultaneously warned against the dangers of the new order. Novels and sermons warned women that to step outside of the patriarchal world into a world of individual independence and individual choice was to risk seduction, betrayal, and disaster. State governments demanded that women turn in lead weights to be melted down for bullets, contribute rags for bandages, and supply clothing and blankets for troops, and the same governments penalized them if they resisted. Many women undertook to police local merchants who hoarded scarce commodities. Historians (Breen 54) have identified at least 30 occasions in the first four years of the Revolution when crowds violently intimidated merchants who were selling food at excessively high prices. Most of these crowds were at least partially composed of women, and perhaps one-third were composed primarily of women.

The main strength of the book is detailed analysis of women and their role during these years. Norton vividly portrays importance of this struggle and string masculine characters of female patriots. the main weakness is lack of historical information about political and economic events of this period. Sometimes, it is difficult to understand causes and economic relations between different agents. Thus, the book is very interesting and exciting. It is easy to read it and understand the role and importance of women. The book is well researched based on objective information and accurate description of all events. Reading this book, I learnt that women were actively involved in the marketplace as shopkeepers and also as consumers. If the consumer boycotts were to succeed, it was clear that women would have to be mobilized to support them with enthusiasm. In a consumer boycott, private behaviors suddenly became charged with public significance, political decisions might be ascribed where none were intended, and even those who wished to remain neutral might find themselves accused of aligning themselves one way or another. I would recommend this book for another class and to a friend because it helps to understand women in American history and see them as fighters and liberators rather than passive wives and housekeepers.

Conclusion

In sum, Norton portrays a unique side of the revolution and depicts a crucial role of women in this struggle. Women remained in their homes and tried to survive as best they could. Thus, they took an active part in political and social life of the nation and life of their community. Revolutionary ideology held out many promises to women, but it would take many generations and much political struggle before women, white and black, could claim them. During the war women continued to be involved in the politics of production and consumption.

Works Cited

Berkin, C. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence. Vintage, 2006.

Breen, T. H. The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence Oxford University Press, USA, 2005.

Norton, M. B. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. Cornell University Press; New Ed edition, 1996.

Ulrich, L. T. Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750. Vintage, 1991.

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“Liberty’s Daughters” by Mary Beth Norton

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