Republican motherhood is a fundamental concept of the early American republic. Women's political power, it argues, is exercised not at the ballot box but in their own separate sphere, where they raise good little patriots. Carol Berkin concludes our series with a look at the long impact of the American revolution for women and connects the dots with the United States' current political landscape, 250 years on.

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On this episode:

• Isabelle Roughol - Host
• Carol Berkin - Guest

Jump to:

• (00:00) - Carole Berkin part 2 (new)
• (01:14) - Start of interview
• (01:28) - The French won the American Revolution
• (02:54) - The rise of girls' education
• (07:34) - What Abigail Adams did not mean
• (09:42) - Republican or civic motherhood
• (12:15) - Separate sphere ideology is coming back in the radical right
• (13:52) - "Femme couverte"
• (16:00) - From the Revolution to Seneca Falls
• (17:44) - The exile of loyalist women
• (22:03) - The betrayal of Black loyalists
• (28:52) - The fate of Black Americans who stayed
• (29:56) - Indigenous women had so much more autonomy and American women knew it
• (33:28) - Molly Brandt
• (35:54) - The Trail of Tears
• (38:11) - America's birth myth
• (41:09) - The Revolution, 250 years on
• (44:50) - Outro

Mercy Otis Warren was what the Revolution called a "female politician" – a woman who cared about and discussed politics, a wholly new archetype for American society then. Her poems, plays and pamphlets – and ultimately her 3-volume history of the revolution – established her as a key political thinker of the movement for independence. But she walked a fine line: she never meant to "transgress the boundaries of (her) sex" and always thought of herself as a wife and mother first. To discuss her life and women's part in the political philosophy of the revolution, I'm joined by Mercy's biographer, Rosemarie Zagarri.

Read the books
🇺🇸 Buy Rosemarie Zagarri's books in the US
A Woman's Dilemma: Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution: https://bookshop.org/a/79408/9781118775011
Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic: https://bookshop.org/a/79408/9780812220735

🇬🇧 Buy Rosemarie Zagarri's books in the UK
A Woman's Dilemma: Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/9178/9781118775011
Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/9178/9781666133929
(Affiliate bookshop.org links support Broad History and indie bookstores.)

★ Support this podcast ★
On this episode:

• Isabelle Roughol - Host
• Rosemarie Zagarri - Guest

• (00:00) - Intro
• (01:33) - Start of interview
• (02:00) - Mercy's unusual education
• (05:25) - Coming of age in the anti-British resistance
• (07:59) - A rare interest in politics
• (09:15) - Men's encouragement
• (12:09) - "A masculine genius"
• (13:45) - Warning the colonists and encouraging sacrifice
• (16:50) - The quintessential female politician
• (19:06) - Defending natural rights
• (21:35) - Embodying, not advocating women's rights
• (27:13) - The first historian of the American Revolution
• (29:25) - Why she opposed the Constitution
• (33:12) - Falling out with John Adams
• (39:04) - Women had the right to vote in 1776 in ONE state
• (43:30) - The French Revolution and the short-lived radical transatlantic conversation about women's rights
• (48:16) - Outro

Phillis Wheatley Peters was transported to America as an enslaved 7-year-old. She quickly became a literary prodigy and an international celebrity – the unofficial first poet laureate of a new nation, says her biographer Vincent Carretta. Together we explore her life, her legacy and recent findings that transform our understanding of the final years of her too-short life.

🇺🇸 Get the books:
(Affiliate bookshop.org links support Broad History and indie bookstores.)

★ Support this podcast ★
On this episode:

• Isabelle Roughol - Host
• Vincent Carretta - Guest

Jump to:
Click here to view the episode transcript.