COURSE DESCRIPTION

The revolutionary war was fought on battlefields, in forests, and on the home front—and the contributions of American women shaped the fight at every turn. They did this in every way imaginable, and while some prospered and thrived when the war came, others faltered and fell. Many American women fought for the patriot cause while almost as many others fought to stop them. The incredible spectrum of female participation in America’s founding conflict defies easy categorisation and reminds us that the legacy of the revolution for American women was not simple, single, or remotely cut and dried.

This four-part course examines the varied roles of women in the American Revolution. Lecture one explores the life of Jane Mecom, the beloved but beggared sister of Benjamin Franklin whose rollercoaster ride through the American Revolution illuminates the experiences of other women on society’s bottom ranks. Lecture two pushes deep into the war itself to reconstruct the wartime experiences of Deborah Sampson, the 21-year-old weaver who disguised herself as a man to serve 17 distinguished months in George Washington’s Continental Army.

Lecture three tells the story of Molly Brant, the Native Mohawk woman who spent the war trying to hold together the fragile military alliance between the Iroquois League and the British Army. Lecture four then follows the story of the American Revolution into the Early Republic, using the life of Maine midwife Martha Ballard to understand how women’s lives changed—and stayed the same—after the patriots won the war.

COURSE CONTENT

Session 1: Jane Mecom
This first lecture reconstructs the American Revolution from the perspective of Jane Mecom, the widow of a Boston shopkeeper—and the favorite little sister of Benjamin Franklin. During the war, Jane would be menaced by soldiers and made a refugee. She would lose her home and her possessions. All this was sadly typical for many other poor women brought low by the revolutionary crisis.

Session 2: Deborah Sampson
This second lecture tells the extraordinary story of Deborah Sampson, the young Massachusetts woman who disguised herself as a man named Robert Shurtlieff in order to fight in the Continental Army. It poses some simple questions: Who was she? Why she did she do it? How did she get away with it? And how did her wartime adventures in George Washington’s Army change her life?

Session 3: Molly Brant
This third lecture explores the American Revolution in Indian Country by focusing upon a Native Mohawk known to us as Molly Brant, the widow of a powerful British diplomat. Straddling two worlds – British and Iroquois – Molly spent the war trying to the fill the political vacuum created by her husband’s death and quickly emerged as the most important military and cultural broker in Native America.

Session 4: Martha Ballard
This last lecture tells the story of a Maine midwife named Martha Ballard, a quiet, dutiful wife, a busy mother, and a kind neighbor whose life was lived entirely in some very small towns. For that reason, perhaps, although she lived through many exciting changes in urban women’s sexual and political circumstances, her life seems – on the surface at least – to have been almost untouched by the 18th century gender revolution.

LECTURER

Dr Richard Bell is a Professor of History at the University of Maryland. He holds a BA from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from Harvard University. He is the author of the new book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home which is shortlisted for the George Washington Prize and the Harriet Tubman Prize. He has won more than a dozen teaching awards, including the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest honour for teaching faculty in the Maryland state system. He has held major research fellowships at Yale, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress and is the recipient of the National Endowment of the Humanities Public Scholar award. Rick is also a Trustee of the Maryland Historical Society and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. 

COURSE STRUCTURE

4 x 1.5 hour sessions. Each session includes an interactive lecture and time for group discussion.

COURSE DATES

Saturdays 9.00-10:30am (AEST - Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne time)

12 June 2021 | 19 June 2021 | 26 June 2021| 3 July 2021

REQUIREMENTS

This course does not require any assumed knowledge, only a willingness to learn and an interest in art. Sessions require access to ZOOM (which is free), a device with a camera (such as a tablet or computer with a webcam), and an internet connection.

BOOKING

Please note that all times are in Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC +10)