America’s Founding Women

Available from Audible Original Great Courses

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Episode 1

Episode 2

Further Reading

Stories, evidence, and arguments in this course are drawn from the following sources that listeners can read to learn more

Primary Sources
Founders Online
Cynthia Kierner, Southern Women in Revolution, 1776-1800: Personal and Political Narratives
North, Wedge, and Freeman, ed., In the Words of Women: The Revolutionary War and the Birth of the Nation, 1765 – 1799

Key Secondary Sources
Catherine Allgor, Parlor Politics
Joan R. Gunderson, To be Useful to the World: Women in Revolutionary America, 1740-1790
Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic
Cynthia Kierner, Beyond the Household: Women’s Place in the Early South, 1700–1835
Mary Beth Norton, Liberty’s Daughters
Rosemarie Zagarri, Revolutionary Backlash

Episode 1
Zara Anishanslin, Portrait of a Woman in Silk
T.H. Breen, An Empire of Goods

Episode 2
T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution
Kate Haulman, The Politics of Fashion in Eighteenth-Century America
Cynthia Kierner, “The Edenton Ladies: Women, Tea, and Politics in Revolutionary North Carolina,” in North Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times, ed. Michele Gillespie and Sally G. McMillen

Episode 3
Elaine Forman Crane, “Political Dialogue and the Spring of Abigail’s Discontent,” William & Mary Quarterly 56.4
Woody Holton, Abigail Adams: A Life
Owen S. Ireland, Sentiments of a British-American Woman: Esther DeBerdt Reed and the American Revolution
Rosemarie Zagarri, A Woman’s Dilemma: Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution

Episode 4
Holly Mayer, Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community During the American Revolution
Michelene E. Pesantubbee, “Nancy Ward: American Patriot or Cherokee Nationalist?” American Indian Quarterly 38.2 (Spring 2014)
Alfred F. Young, Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier

Episode 5
Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic
Mary Beth Norton, Liberty’s Daughters

Episode 6
Douglas Egerton, Death Or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America
Judith Apter Klinghoffer and Louis Elkis. “‘The Petticoat Electors’: Women’s Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–1807.” Journal of the Early Republic 12, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 159–193.
Jan Lewis, “‘Of Every Age Sex & Condition’: The Representation of Women in the Constitution,” Journal of the Early Republic 15.3 (Autumn 1993)
Jan Lewis, “Rethinking Women’s Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–1807.” Rutgers Law Review 63, no. 3 (2011): pp. 1017–1035.
Sheila L. Skemp, First Lady of Letters: Judith Sargent Murray and the Struggle for Female Independence

Episode 7
Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic
Mary Kelly, Learning to Stand and Speak
Jan Lewis, “The Republican Wife: Virtue and Seduction in the Early Republic.” The William and Mary Quarterly 44, no. 4 (October 1987): 689–721.
Fredrika Teute, “A ‘Republic of Intellect’: Conversation and Criticism among the Sexes in 1790s New York.” In Revising Charles Brockden Brown: Culture, Politics, and Sexuality in the Early Republic, edited by Philip Barnard, Mark Kamrath, and Stephen Shapiro, 149–81.
Fredrika Teute, “In ‘the Gloom of Evening’: Margaret Bayard Smith’s View in Black and White of Early Washington Society.” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 106, no. Part 1 (1996): 37–58.

Episode 8
Cassandra Good, Founding Friendships
Fredrika Teute, “Roman Matron on the Banks of Tiber Creek: Margaret Bayard Smith and the Politicization of Spheres in the Nation’s Capital.” In A Republic for the Ages: The United States Capitol and the Political Culture of the Early Republic, edited by Kenneth Bowling.

Episode 9
Louisa Thomas, Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams

Episode 10
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City
Lori Ginzberg, “‘Moral Suasion Is Moral Balderdash’: Women, Politics, and Social Activism in the 1850s.” The Journal of American History 3, no. 3 (1986): 601–22.
John Marszalek, The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson’s White House
Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” American Quarterly 18, no. 2, part 1 (Summer 1966): 151–74.