Summary Of Revolutionary Mothers By Carol Berkin

In Carol Berkin’s book, Revolutionary Mothers, she provides detail into the world of the women who played an active and vital role during the Revolutionary War. Over the years historians have downplayed the effect that these women have had on our nation. She emphasizes the effect of these women by speaking from the viewpoint of not only Colonial white women, but also Native-American and African-American women. Berkin also chooses to focus on portraying to the reader how the people of this time were affected. She accomplishes this by balancing the perspective between rich and poor, patriot and loyalist, and American and British.
Berkin is not the first person to question which role women of this time played for their country. However she took it further by going deeper into the idea of gender roles, and how gender or race decided your experiences. From previously published sources about the American Revolution Berkin is able to reimagine these historical works and describe the multiple roles that women played. She also brings new characters to life in her book unlike other books which all focus around the same few characters. Berkin mentions these sources considerably throughout the footnotes of her book.

While her use of these footnotes is redundant, she makes good use of primary sources. Some of these primary sources include letters, personal diaries and direct quotes from several documents including Edenton Resolves, and the Philipsburg Proclamation. These sources provide an understanding of the women and why they chose to support one side or the other. Berkin kept a good balance between the amount of primary and secondary sources that were used. Most of the secondary sources were mainly from other historical books about women during the revolutionary