This Jackdaw illustrates the often forgotten breadth of activity of the American woman during the war for independence, and moves her from the margins of the historical pages to the center. Your students will gain a new appreciation of the role women played as spies, soldiers, and even prisoners of war. Hands-on letters, plays, poems and personal journals provide firsthand accounts to stimulate thinking. The Broadsheets lead to a discussion of women’s rights. Historian: Carol Berkin. The contents of this Jackdaw feature:

• Women in Politics and Propaganda
• The Home Front War
• Civilian Heroines and Army Wives
• Loyalist Women in Exile
• Why No Women’s Rights after the Revolution?

• An installment of Mercy Warren’s play, “The Defeat,” from the Boston Gazette, 19 July 1773.
• “Ode to George Washington,” a poem by Phillis Wheatley, April 1776 Pennsylvania Magazine.
• “Advertisement for Spinners,” Pennsylvania Packet, 1775.
• “A New Touch on the Times Well Adapted to the Distressing Situation of Every Sea-Port Town,” a broadside, 1779.
• “A letter from a lady in Philadelphia to her friend in this place” from the Boston Independent Chronicle, 27 July 1780.
• An excerpt from the Marquis of Chastellux’s Voyages, Paris 1786.
• General orders of George Washington, 4 August 1777.
• A letter from Hannah Winthrop to Mercy Warren, 11 November 1777.
• “Pension for Margaret Corbin” from the Journal of the Continental Congress, 6 July 1779, and a transcript.
• A letter from Esther Sewall to her sister-in-law Katy Quincy, 1778.