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Revolutionary Mothers by Carol Berkin

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“Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence” demonstrates how the lives of women come into play during the Revolutionary War. The women throughout the book both impact the war and are impacted by it. Carol Berkin dives deep into several different women’s lives and makes clear some of the obstacles that women face. She shows that men were not the only key characters in the war. She also does not focus mainly on colonial women, but also Native American women as well to show how they were affected too. Her use of sources such as books and diaries are ways that she is able to back up the information that she is giving. Without women there would have been completely different stories to tell about history. The book tries to open the readers’ eyes to these truths. Crucial to the book, Berkin doesn’t only focus on the times that the Revolutionary War took place; she chronicles the lives of women before, during, and after the war. This is vital to the history of women and the war. Berkin starts by explaining the roles that women in this time were known to have. This helps the readers get a background understanding of a woman’s life pre-war. This is done because later in the book women begin to break those norms that they are expected to have. It shows just how determined and motivated these revolutionary women and mothers were for independence. During the war she shows the struggles that women went through. The roles women played during the war change drastically. After the war Berkin explains how the lives of women were changed. Covering a larger period of time is important to the book because it starts by setting the stage for women in the war, explains how the war was for women, and then the outcome for women after the victory in the war. By doing this Berkin is able to display how the lives of women have changed in that short period of time. Another important topic Berkin explains is how women had great influence during the revolution; they were beginning to speak out and it started to become a norm if it was about the revolution. If women tried that about another subject it would have been looked and take on roles which they had never taken before. This is imp

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