Lesson Plan 1: High School
Assessing Change: Women's Lives in the American Revolutionary
Era
by Roberta McCutcheon
Objectives:
1. Students will examine primary documents and secondary sources to
analyze women’s history in the eighteenth and first decades of
the nineteenth centuries.
2. Students will be able to identify assumptions and biases that they
bring to historical analysis.
2. Students will be able to identify the major social, political and
economic trends of the eighteenth century and the first two decades
of the nineteenth century.
3. Students will be able to examine the effects of imperial war and
reorganization, the Revolutionary War and creation of a new nation and
new Republic on white women in North America.
4. Students will be engaged in historical research and the critical
analysis of documents of this momentous period in American History.
Introduction:
Labeling an era in history as revolutionary implies that research of
the period in question exposed substantial change. Indeed significant
change did occur during the American Revolutionary Era—a colonial
power lost a vital piece of its empire, a unified nation emerged and
a new republic was created. These are the major transformations of the
Revolution but certainly not the only shifts that took place before
the war or after and as a result of the war. It is the more subtle adjustments,
the ones that sometimes are overlooked, that provide an interesting
and challenging opportunity to practitioners and students of history.
Historians of white women in early America have not agreed on a single
conceptualization of women’s history. Often the analyses propose
a comparison or an evaluation of women’s status. These historians
conclude that the first two centuries for white women in North American
were a kind of golden age. They held that the status of women who immigrated
to North America was better than that of the women they left behind
in England and that of women in America in the nineteenth century. This
kind of analysis may be valid but it is also rather narrow in scope
and overshadows some aspects of women’s experiences. In this lesson
the class will not seek to reach an evaluative conclusion—better
or worse—but will instead look more broadly at change over time
and all the subtleties that contribute to the differences in women’s
responses to the changes that took place in this period in American
History.
Student Activity One: Document Analysis—Different Perspectives
1. Divide the class into small groups. Have each group examine the documents
listed below. Have each group write a brief analysis of each document.
If a group is unable to reach consensus on the meaning of a document,
the group should report on the various analyses.
2. Have each group share their analysis or analyses of each document
with the class.
Images
Colonial Era
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/silverbeam/A%20CSM%20Blog/Colonialwoman.jpg
(Spinning)
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-americanhistory/Colonial%20Women,%201876,%20H.%20W.%20Pierce-500.jpg
(Cooking Revolutionary War)
http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/marchandslides.bak/taylor_alan/images/Rev-p14-
c04.jpg (Molly Pitcher)
http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/marchandslides.bak/taylor_alan/images/Rev-p14-b01.jpg
(Woodcut of a patriot woman)
New Republic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_artist_and_his_family_james_peale.jpg
(Republican Motherhood)
http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/marchandslides.bak/1000/images/ScanImage01303.jpg
(Petitioning for the rights of women)
Student Activity Two: Discussion and Research
3. Class discussion:
a. The reports should be the basis of a discussion of the potential
for differences in historian’s accounts of events.
b. Discuss possible reasons for variations in interpretation. For example,
what assumptions influenced interpretations? Are the differences in
interpretation a result of contemporary values and insight when analyzing
each document?
4. Have each group research the historical background of each document.
As the research progresses, groups should take note of the actual roles,
expectations, assumptions and behavior of women in the historic era.
The following websites provide useful information and good biographical
research.
General History
http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm
http://womenhistory.blogspot.com/
Colonial Era
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/HistoryGals/Chloe.html
http://www.ushistory.org/us/12d.asp
Revolutionary War
http://www2.lhric.org/spbattle/wohist.html
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/1789/women.html
http://www.concordma.com/magazine/sept98/liberty.html
Republican Motherhood – New Republic
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/482587.html
(open responses to a question about Republican Motherhood)
http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=republican+motherhood&btnG=Google+Search
(good article, scholarly research)
http://www.hulu.com/watch/71332/celebrating-mom-republican-motherhood
http://www.hulu.com/watch/71332/celebrating-mom-republican-motherhood
(Judith Sargent Murray)
Student Activity Three: Reconsider Analysis of Documents
1. Analyze the original documents. This time use the research and knowledge
regarding historical assumptions and historical setting.
2. Each group should share the informed analysis with the class.
3. The class should discuss how the analyses changed and how an understanding
of the period altered how they looked at each image.
Extension Activity: Essay
To what extent did the American Revolution change the lives of white
women in North America? In your response be sure to consider the lives
of white women before, during and after the Revolutionary War.
BACK TO TEACHER'S DESK
