Women of the American Revolution

This is a little (5"x7") oil painting I did last weekend of a woman in 18th century garb. It was from a photo I took at a recent reenactment of the Battle of Monmouth. Ah, we geeks love the smell of wood smoke and gunpowder don't we?

She got me thinking not about the Founding Fathers, but about the Founding Mothers. Who do you think of? Well, Molly Pitcher recieved her fame by stepping in for her husband and serving an artillery piece at Monmouth. Who else? Betsy Ross sewing a flag? Fellow geeks, it gets much more interesting than that!

How about intrigue. There's Elizabeth Burgin and The Great Escape, Revolutionary War style. She frequently visited the horrid prison ships in New York harbor where POW's from the Continental Army were left to rot. Not content to simply smuggle food and water to them, she also helped 200 of them escape. The miffed British put a price on her head but she eluded them. Read more here: http://www.nwhm.org/Education/biography_lburgin.html

Now let's try moxie. In true Jersey Girl style, Hannah Arnett spoke her mind. After Washington's disasterous retreat across New Jersey in 1776, some men in Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth, NJ and my birthplace!) decided to hop off the Liberty bandwagon and bow once again to the King of England. Hanna harangued them, calling them cowards and imploring them not to give up. In a time when it was unthinkable, she even threatened divorce of her husband. Hannah's voice convinced them to stick it out and remain rebels. Atta girl! http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/njwomenshistory/Period_2/Arnett.htm

People think most history geeks are men, but hang on to your bonnets boys! The first American history geek was a girl! Mercy Otis Warren could write up a storm, literally. Living in Massachusetts, she was at the epicenter of the Revolution. She wrote propaganda type plays supporting the movement as early as 1772. One of the plays, which poked fun at the British, was entitled The Blockheads. I guess that word was around long before Lucy applied it to Charlie Brown! She wrote poetry too but, bless her geek heart, she published the History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution in 1805. http://www.masshist.org/bh/mercybio.html

There are so many more stories of revolutionary women that I could write a book. No need. Yet another early girl geek, Elizabeth F. Ellet beat me to it in 1849. If you want something a little more up to date and are a National Public Radio fan like me, political analyst Cokie Roberts wrote one in 2004.

So listen up single male geeks, your lady geek is out there somewhere wandering a battlefield, perusing a museum or hanging out in the history section at Barnes and Noble. Dont' just sit here reading blogs, go find her!