Working The Revolution

birth and raised children. They made clothing, uniforms, and other necessities for the troops. In the absence of the men, the women essentially ran everything. In short, without the women, whose work was literally never done, the American Revolution would quite arguably have been a dismal failure.

In the urban areas, women performed all sorts of tasks. Aside from ensuring the family business ran smoothly, thousands of women took to wage labor. In Philadelphia in 1776, four thousand women and children worked at home, spinning cloth for local plants. Women also served as "shopkeepers and innkeepers and engaged in many trades. They were bakers, tinworkers, brewers, tanners, ropemakers, lumberjacks, printers, morticians, woodworkers, staymakers, and more."¹⁴ In the home, the woman still tended to the typical household duties expected of her prior to the war. However, she held no legal claim over her labor, as she was subservient to husband or father. Thus even with the vast contributions made to the wartime economy, she received little to no economic autonomy, no resultant freedom.¹⁵

Nevertheless, they worked diligently in their supposed superiors' absence. On the farms, the ladies were expected to not only "fulfill their traditional obligations" but have to "plant and harvest fields, cut wood, fix fences, secure house against rain and snow, forge and sharpen tools," as well as feed and house armies as they passed by.

Many women were 'drafted' into military service as laborers, and they were expected to nurse wounded and sickly men back to health. Others who had no other alternative would travel with the armies, serving as cooks and washerwomen, messengers and artillery aids. And what of compensation? This was left entirely to the military commanders. According to Raphael, sometimes the women received full compensation through rations, sometimes half, sometimes none. As all of this illustrates, "women of the Revolution helped keep a torn society from falling apart."¹⁶

The American Revolution was kept going by the laborers of the time. General Washington's strategy of avoiding large-scale battles and sophisticated maneuvering would not have seen its success had it not been for the women, the slaves, the wage workers doing their part to keep the American machine from breaking down. As Raphael writes:

The business of war required hardworking people to work even harder. During the various waves of nonimportation, both men and women stepped up the pace of production to compensate for the absence of goods from abroad. With the

The copyright of the article Working The Revolution in U.S. Labour History is owned by Michael J. Swogger. Permission to republish Working The Revolution in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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