Gathering evidence from diaries, memoirs, letters, and other contemporary material, Mary Beth Norton examines the impact of the Revolution War had on the women residing in the thirteen colonies from 1750 to 1800. Liberty's Daughters provides historical evidence of women's daily lives, domestic activities, marriages, pains of pregnancies, and the difficulties women of this era had in defining a sense of feminine independence before, during, and after the Revolutionary War.
Norton takes an in-depth look at "The Constant Pattern of Women's Lives" within the first part of the book, expanding on the livelihoods of women in the immediate years before the Revolution. This section addresses how women were treated, measured, and what their acceptable roles were as respectable daughters, mothers, sisters, and wives. …show more content…
Further examining the struggle and changes that American women faced in wake of the Revolutionary War. Norton concludes the novel with a four-page conclusion on, "A New Era of Female History", reflecting on the attitudes and independence of the nineteenth-century female mentality, and posturing on the daunting tasks women face in the new century for equality and respect.
The Revolutionary War had its hand in creating chaos but it was not limited to a political or economic sphere. Challenging American predisposed dispositions of women's roles in acceptable feminine spheres, war redefined what was acceptable to the fairer sex and embolden women's self-conceptions, challenging the subservient, republican male mentality. The broad strokes of feminine reinvention were not limited to the public eye but instead, was all-encompassing transforming women's daily lives, domestic activities, marriages, pains of pregnancies, and the collective self-worth of American