Women in the American Revolution

Diaries and Memoirs

Drinker, Elizabeth Sandwith, and Elaine Forman Crane. The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker: The Life Cycle of an Eighteenth-Century Woman. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994.

Morris, Margaret. Private Journal, kept during a portion of the Revolutionary War, for the amusement of a sister. Philadelphia: Philadelphia, private printing, 1836.

During the period, December 6, 1776 through June 14, 1777, Margaret Morris kept a diary.  A resident of Burlington, New Jersey, Morris witnessed the conflict in New Jersey. A Quaker, Morris did not take sides in the conflict but sought to have her town designated a neutral site.  This diary is a good example of how the civilian population was forced to house and feed the armies of both sides when passing through their towns.

Morris’s diary can be read via the Hathitrust website.

Wister, Sally. Sally Wister’s Journal – A True Narrative. Edited by Albert Cook Myers. Reprint 2017. Philadelphia: Ferris & Leach Publishers, 1902.

Other Primary Sources

Berkin, Carol, and Leslie Horowitz, eds. Women’s Voices, Women’s Lives: Documents in Early American History. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998.

Secondary Sources

Blumenthal, Walter Hart. Women Camp Followers of the American Revolution. Women in America: From Colonial Times to the 20th Century. New York: Arno Press, 1974.

Bohrer, Melissa Lukeman. Glory, Passion, and Principle: The Story of Eight Remarkable Women at the Core of the American Revolution. New York: Atria Books, 2003.

De Pauw, Linda Grant, Conover Hunt, and Miriam Schneir. Remember the Ladies: Women in America, 1750-1815. A Studio Book. New York: Viking Press, 1976.

Clyne, Patricia Edwards, and Richard Lebenson. Patriots in Petticoats. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1976.

Ditz, Toby L. “Domesticating Women: The Gendering of Politics in Great Britain and Anglo-America.” Edited by Mary Beth Norton. Reviews in American History 40, no. 3 (2012): 365–69.

Ellet, E. F. The Women of the American Revolution. Nashville, TN: American History Imprints, 2004.

Reprint of iconic work originally published in 1849.  Short bios of over 100 women associated with the American Revolution.  A good source for overviews of their lives. A third volume is available at the Internet Archives.

Mayer, Holly A., ed. Women Waging War in the American Revolution. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2022.

Kerber, Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2000.

McKenney, Janice E. Women of the Constitution: Wives of the Signers. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, Inc, 2013.

Roberts, Cokie. Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation. 1st ed. New York: William Morrow, 2004.

Stuart, Nancy Rubin. Poor Richard’s Women: Deborah Read Franklin and the Other Women behind the Founding Father. Boston: Beacon Press, 2022.

Wister, Sally. Sally Wister’s Journal – A True Narrative. Edited by Albert Cook Myers. Reprint 2017. Philadelphia: Ferris & Leach Publishers, 1902.