Woman's work in America

by Unknown

Not only did women mingle their prayers with those of men at the family altar, beseeching Divine guidance, but their own counsel was sought by men, and given, in the deliberations which resulted in the nation’s independence. Less than half a century ago, Mrs. E. F. Ellett took on herself the task of collecting the facts, and sketching the biographies, of the women who were known to have contributed to the success of the country in its struggle for independence. She was successful beyond her expectations, and published three volumes of about three hundred pages each, containing biographical sketches of nearly one hundred and seventy women. Despite the light esteem in which the service of women has been held, and the ease with which it has been forgotten, their record had been preserved, and their memories tenderly perpetuated for three-quarters of a century.

Foremost among them stands Mrs. Mercy Warren, wife of Joseph Warren, and sister of James Otis, author of the never-to-be-forgotten axiom, that “Taxation without representation is tyranny!” She possessed the fiery ardor and patriotic zeal of her distinguished brother, with more political wisdom and sagacity. She was the first one to suggest the doctrine of the “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as inherent, and belonging equally to all mankind”; and the patriots of that day accepted her teaching. She first of all counseled separation from the mother country as the only solution of the political problem. She so impressed her convictions upon Samuel and John Adams that they were foremost in their advocacy of “independence,” and received, at first, marked discourtesy from their contemporaries for their imprudence.

She corresponded with the Adamses, Jefferson, Generals Gerry and Knox, Lee and Gates, and others who sought her advice. She entertained General and Mrs. Washington, supplied political parties with their arguments, and was the first woman to teach political leaders their duties in matters of state. She kept a faithful record of events during the Revolutionary War, drew her own conclusions as a philosopher and politician, and at the close of the struggle published a history of the war, which can be found in some of the New England libraries, and which contains faithful portraits of the most eminent men of the day. Rochefoucauld, in his “Tour of the United States,” says of her, “Seldom has a woman in any age acquired such ascendancy by the mere force of a powerful intellect, and her influence continued through life.”

So grand a leader had plenty of followers, and while there appears to have been no other woman of the time whose influence was as powerful, there were not a few who almost reached the altitude of her rare development. The morale of these women penetrated the men of the time with a sinewy courage that neither weakened nor flagged. They enforced their words of cheer by relinquishing prospects of advantage for themselves, renouncing tea and all other imported luxuries, and pledged themselves to card, spin, and weave the clothing of their households, and as far as possible of the army. They gave their own property for the purchase of arms and ammunition for the soldiers, and melted their wealth of pewter ware, in which many of the colonial households were rich, and ran it into bullets for the army. They raised grain, gathered it, and caused it to be ground for bread, that the poor and feeble might be fed.

They visited the hospitals with proper diet for the sick and wounded, sought out the dungeons of the provost and the crowded holds of the prison-ships, with food and medicine in their hands and heroic words on their lips. They unsparingly condemned coldness or backwardness in the nation’s cause, and young girls refused the suits of lovers till they had obeyed the call of their country for military service. They received their beloved dead, slain in battle, and forbore to weep, although their hearts were breaking. They even hushed the bitter resentment of their souls, which had been aroused by British invasion, and gave Christian burial to their enemies, who, but for them, at times would not have received it. They trained their little children to the same uncomplaining patience, the same steely endurance, and the same heroic love of liberty which fired their own hearts, until boys and girls gloried in danger and privation. What wonder that the heroes of the Revolutionary War proved invincible!

John Adams, the second President of the Republic, knew the women of the Revolution well, and was able to measure a superior woman wherever he found her, and to estimate her influence. His own wife, Mrs. Abigail Adams, was the personal friend of Mrs. Mercy Warren, and every whit her peer. Her husband was proud to acknowledge her as his equal in all save early education, which was accorded him in large measure and wholly denied her, as she never attended school a day in her life. In one of his letters to his wife Mr. Adams comments on the futile efforts of the British General Howe to obtain possession of Philadelphia, which the colonists foiled for a long time. He writes her, “I do not believe General Howe has a very great woman for a wife. A smart wife would have put Howe in possession of Philadelphia a long time ago.”

In the winter of 1780, the resources of the country touched their lowest point, and allowed but the scantiest supply of food and clothing for any one. British cruisers on the coast destroyed every hope of aid from the merchant vessels, and the cup of misfortune pressed to the lips of the struggling colonists overflowed with bitterness. Even the ability of the wealthiest and most generous was exhausted by the repeated drafts made on them. So great was the need of the army, that General Steuben, who had been aid-de-camp to the king of Prussia, and had learned the art of war from the renowned Frederic the Great, declared that “there was not a commander in all Europe who could keep his troops together a week in such suffering and destitution.”

But when all despaired the women rallied. All else was temporarily forgotten. The women of Philadelphia went forth from house to house, soliciting money, or whatever could be converted into money. They asked for cloth, garments, and food. Rich women stripped themselves of jewels that were heirlooms in their families, pillaged their parlors of antique bric-a-brac, with the hope that it might find purchasers, and emptied their purses of the last penny they possessed. More than seventy-five hundred dollars in specie were collected, when hard money was at its highest value. One woman cut five hundred pairs of pantaloons with her own hand, and superintended their manufacture. Mrs. Bache, a daughter of Dr. Franklin, was a leading spirit in these patriotic efforts. When a company of French noblemen called on her, she conducted them to her parlor, and showed them a pile of twenty-two hundred shirts for the army, collected by herself, each one marked with the name of the woman who had cut and made it.

Nor was this a mere spasm of helpfulness, that soon died out in forgetfulness and inaction. All through that dreary winter women continued their visits to Washington’s camp, fortifying the men with their own inflexible spirit, and tiding them over this darkest passage in their experience, with steady streams of beneficence. They always went laden with comforts for the needy and the sick, and were prepared to serve as cook or seamstress, amanuensis or nurse, equally prompt with hymn or story, Bible-reading or prayer, as occasion demanded.

While the colonial women were a mighty bulwark of strength to the struggling men of the embryo nation, some of them were unforgetful of their own rights, and in advance of the formation of the new government asked for recognition. Abigail Smith Adams, the wife of John Adams of Massachusetts, was a woman of strong convictions, and of large intellectual abilities. She wrote her husband, in March, 1776, then at the Colonial Congress in Philadelphia, and urged the claims of her sex upon his attention, demanding for them representation when the government was organized. She wrote as follows: