and they wanted to directly show the troops that even though they couldn't fight on the field of battle, they were behind them. they wanted them to know that this was a collective cause for all americans. so we see already some of the unintended consequences of the revolutionary movement. the boycott movement politicizes women. it makes them politically aware. it makes them understand that they have the potential to be politically involved and active. it makes male political leaders realize that women could make a contribution even though women could not vote, even though women were still primarily wives and mothers. even in their traditional feminine roles, women could be political actors. they could be as patriotic as men, and they could make a significant contribution to the revolutionary cause. so as a result of these efforts of the women in the pre-revolutionary era and in the revolution itself, we were no

longer politically invisible. now, the next woman i'd like to turn your attention to is a very different kind of person, a person you may have heard of, a woman named phyllis wheatley. wheatley was born in africa around 1750. she was captured and sold into slavery as a young child. but unlike most slaves, phyllis wheatley wound up in a very congenial environment for an enslaved person. she was purchased in 1761 by susanna wheatley, the wife of a boston merchant. she was to be a domestic slave rather than a field hand or work as a domestic worker on a large plantation which was the fate of most female-enslaved people at this time. and she was also very fortunate

because the family into which she landed was very, very attentive to her. they quickly observed that she was a very quick learner, extremely precocious and with a keen intellect. and rather than repress phyllis' intellect, they nurtured it, cultivated it, they encouraged it. they taught her to read and write. not only that, they taught her mathematics. they taught her geography, history, and even the classics. in fact, they taught her to read in latin. and even the most educated women in america at this time, one of the most educated being a woman named mercy otis warren of massachusetts, did not know how to read the classical languages.

that was the true hallmark of a gentleman, of an educated person. but yet phyllis wheatley learned to read latin. at some point as a teenager, probably with the wheatleys' encouragement, phyllis took up her pan and began to compose poetry. the wheatleys were stunned by phyllis's gift and began to seek publication for her works in newspapers. one of her poems on george whitfield, the minister, was published. and it gained widespread attention both in the british colonies and in england. so phyllis wheatley, then, was actually gaining fame as a poet in the years just prior to the american revolution or to the declaration of american independence. the wheatleys actually believed that phyllis's work should be published as a book. and they tried to find an american publisher for her work without success. so in may of 1773, they sent phyllis, along with their son, to england. there phyllis wheatley made

contacts with many notable people who were supportive of her talents and impressed by her abilities. she gained a patroness, the countess of huntington who sponsored the publication of her book. and in late 1773, wheatley's book, "poems on various subjects, religious and moral," was issue first in england and later in america. phyllis's mistress, susanna wheatley, died in may of 1774 and at some point thereafter phyllis was freed. she left the bonds of slavery. she was given her freedom. after her mistress's death, phyllis married a free black man, john peters. they had three children. in freedom, however, wheatley found unexpected challenges. she continued to write poetry, but she had a very difficult time supporting her family.

she had to work as a char woman. she could barely have the means to keep her family alive. always in frail health, in december 1784, just as the american war for independence was ending, wheatley died, never having published her proposed second volume of poetry. despite all her talents and gifts, wheatley's life ended in impoverishment. american society lacked the opportunities for a gifted, educated woman like wheatley to find employment and, of course, her situation was all the more compounded because she was also a free black woman. tragic, though it may be, what wheatley's life allows us to see in sharp perspective, some of

the issues that the american revolution raised for enslaved black women and for the white americans who began to ponder as a result of the revolution the contradiction between slavery for black people and freedom for whites. first of all, the very existence of credible literary works produced by a person who was both female and black challenged stereotypes about those groups. people who cared to pay attention would see that black people and women were not necessarily inherently inferior in either intellect or ability. it suggested that -- her life suggested with the proper environment and education, women and african-americans could be capable of the same attainments as white men. in fact, they could exceed -- they could excel. second, although much of wheatley'str

number of poems with patriotic themes. and what's clear from these patriotic poems is that she completely identified with the american cause. she saw herself as an american. she supported the resistance movement against great britain. she objected to british tyranny, and she supported the establishment of an american nation whose future she saw as great and impressive. in 1775, she wrote a poem to george washington to his excellency, george washington in which she praised washington's prowess as commander in chief and celebrated the american struggle against britain. not only that, she actually sent her poem to george washington. so here she is, she's still an enslaved woman. and she sends her poem to the commander in chief of the

american continental army. washington, to his credit, responded to wheatley's poems generously and graciously, and the two actually met one another in 1776. it shows you then that even a slave owner like george washington was willing to recognize merit he saw it. recognize merit when he saw it. not so another american political leader, thomas jefferson, who dismissed phyllis wheatley's poetry as inferior and not worth the label of literary. nevertheless, i think what this whole episode shows us is that for phyllis wheatley and for the americans who witnessed the flourishing of her career, it was possible to see that black people were capable of much more than anyone had given them credit for.

surely most of the leaders sitting in philadelphia in 1776 would not have anticipated this as part of the revolutionary legacy. but as exceptional as wheatley's abilities were, she was not the only enslaved person to believe that the rhetoric of the american revolution applied to them. in many states, north and south, enslaved people took the ideas of liberty, equality, rights, freedom and started applying them to themselves. in some states, enslaved people petitioned their state legislatures for their liberty. sometimes they appropriated the very words of the declaration of independence in asking for their freedom. in many places, enslaved people did not bother with formalities. it's believed that anywhere from

20,000 to 50,000 enslaved people took advantage of the dislocations of war and freed themselves by running away during the american revolution. in fact, both washington and jefferson lost slaves during the revolution, much to their chagrin. surely this was an unintended and to many outrageous consequence of the american revolution. finally, the coming of the american revolution brought home to many white americans the contradiction, not to say hypocrisy, of american colonists who objected to infringements on their freedom but who at the same time systematically deprived black people of their most basic rights and liberties. it did leave certain people to have their slaves. and there were a large number of slave owners who did free their slaves. northern state legislatures put slavery on the road to abolition either immediately or gradually. the federal government

prohibited slavery in the northwest territory in 1787. and the u.s. constitution, though admittedly in many ways a pro-slavery document that protected slavery in many regards did not once use the word "slave" or "slavery" in the text, for many white americans, embarrassment, a moral blight that should be put on the road to extinction. of course, for a substantial minority, slavery remained an issue of property rights, not human rights. and for them, the next 60 years was a pitched battle in which they tried to justify slavthin was dedicated to equality and natural rights. surely, this, too, was another

unintended consequence of the american revolution. finally, i'd like to turn your attention to another even more obscure woman, a woman named elizabeth alexander stevens. and elizabeth alexander stevens is noteworthy mostly because of where she lived. she lived in essex county, new jersey. she was married to a wealthy man who died. and after he died, she moved into essex county where she owned a substantial amount of property on which she paid taxes. why is this significant? well, in new jersey, alone among all the 13 states, women were allowed to vote, to cast ballots for candidates to local, state and federal office from the period 1776 to 1807.

this is over 100 years before the passage of the 19th amendment. so how was this possible? it was possible because in the 18th century, both in britain and in america, suffrage was not considered a natural right. it was considered a privilege of property, a property right. only those earning -- owning a certain amount of property were allowed to vote or hold public office. by custom, only men voted. by custom, this meant men, although theoretically, it could have included women, but it didn't. by custom, only men voted. now, traditionally, men owned most of the land. but also by custom, married women could not own property,

but single and widowed women, unmarried women, could own property. so in some places, in the colonies and then in the early united states, unmarried and widowed women were paying taxes on property they owned. why is this important? well, for some women who listened carefully to the rhetoric of the american revolution, to the slogan "no taxation without representation," this was a very personal issue. they looked at their own condition, and they saw they were paying taxes. and yet they could not vote and did not have a voice in government. one of these women was hanna lee corbin of virginia. the sister of richard henry lee. she was a wealthy widow who paid taxes on her land. in 1778, she wrote a scathing letter to her brother asking why revolutionary principles did not apply to her.

why, she asked, should she be deprived in her voice when she had at much stake in society as many men. her brother, richard henry lee, was flabbergasted. he simply did not anticipate this line of inquiry, and he had no adequate rejoinder for her question. he simply pointed to custom and tradition as the grounds of exclusion. but what this meant, in fact, is that hanna lee corbin and all the widows paying taxes like her were being deprived of representation simply on the basis of their sex, simply because they were women. surely, no woman in philadelphia in 1776 anticipated this. maybe john adams because abigail

had primed him. now, what happened in new jersey is that the legislatures -- legislators in the state of new jersey took this principle of no taxation without representation seriously. and took it to its furthest extremes. in 1776, the continental congress asked each state to write its own constitution. and when the state of new jersey was writing its first constitution, when it devised the provision regarding suffrage, it simply talked about it in gender-neutral terms. it said all inhabitants who are worth 50 pounds proclamation money are entitled to vote. now, this gender neutral language is not in itself significant. if you look at the early state constitutions, more than half of them do not limit voting to men.

what was different in new jersey is that in 1790 and in 1797, state legislators clarified the meaning of this provision, and they passed election statutes in which they referred to voters using the pronoun "he" and "she." so new jersey actually extended the franchise to all adult members of society who met the property qualification for voting. and that meant free blacks as well as white women who were unmarried and owned property. and so that's how it became possible for a woman like elizabeth alexander stevens to vote in new jersey. both political parties began to court the women's votes. at the same time, as you might imagine, this experiment in female suffrage was very controversial. many men as well as many women

found the idea of women voting strange, foreign and unacceptable. it violated their notion of what men's and women's proper roles were. while men were certainly perfectly prepared to involve women in informal political activities such as boycotts, they did not anticipate enlisting them in direct political actions such as voting. so throughout the 1790s and into the early 19th century, there were frequent diatribes against female suffrage in pamphlets, newspapers and in the new jersey legislature itself. many of the attacks were outrageous, hysterical and self-contradictory. some said women lacked the knowledge and judgment to participate in politics. but others feared that women were getting too knowledgeable about politics.

some men feared that women were acting too much like men by participating. they abhorred the undue influence of women on politics, accusing them of forming a petticoat faction or a becoming manly women, as they put it. and they feared if women could vote, they would inevitably start to run for public office. that was truly horrible. as one poem in new jersey put it, to congress, witches and widows shall go. like witches loathed in the dignity of state and coats and breaches. so women who ran for office would stop wearing think petticoats and start wearing coats and breaches. oops.

anyway, if you know of abigail and john's correspondence of i 1776, you know john was aw this, of abigails upset about the status of women and his reply was that, women are more influen influence, unofficially, indirectly and he talked about the sway of the petticoat. what the episode in new jersey indicates is that while men were content to acknowledge that informal influence. so there were serious efforts made in the legislature to disenfranchise women. in 1799, and 1802. finally, after particularly contentious election in 1807,

the legislature was able to pass a law that disenfran choose chi women. when there were accusations of fraud, what they did was disenfranchise the groups, women and free blacks and this ended in 1807, this brief experiment in women voting. now, you might say -- did the women rise up in protest? and somewhat surprisingly they did not. and to understand why not, we have to go back to understanding what voting meant at this time. remember, voting at this time was understood as a privilege o. it would be the jeffersonnians who in the early 19th century

would launch a state-by-state campaign to eliminate property qualifications for voting for white men. now even jeffersonians acknowledged women had natural rights. when it came to voting, jeffersonians were not prepared to be logically consistent. when it came to voting, they simply said -- that it was extraordinary, absurd, and unnatural to enfranchise women. but the experiment in new jersey stood as an indelible reminder that it wasn't necessarily so. so in what sense can we consider women like elizabeth stephens, phyllis wheatley, and esther

reid founders and women like them. how can they be considered founders of our nation. as the i said, without their participation, male revolutionaries would not have been able to be successful in their fight against britain. with all due respect to the brilliance and the creativity and inna aimagination and brave male political leaders they needed followers. without followers their efforts would have failed. and women's efforts particularly in the boycott were very important. then during the revolutionary war itself they were necessary on the home front for the men to be able to conduct the direct business of war and governing. so what this meant was that the revolution enlisted women's support, made them politically conscious, and to think of women as political agents. it gave women political

identities and,ak -- acknowledge women did indeed play significant part in the political process indirect though that role may be. even as wives and mothers, women could be patriots and revolutionaries. and this was significant in the post revolutionary era. because women were understood as political beings, they call to be understood as citizens who had certain rights. they could play a role in a certain way, and civic virtue and patriotism in their children and husband. and this in turn had consequences, because, because if women were to be the first teachers of the patriotism, women needed to be educated. so, educational opportunities for women expanded. you had the founding of a large number of -- seminaries for women, of institutions that would educate women. you have a skyrocketing, in the

rate of female literacy. and that in turn led to women's continuing participation in informal political activities. informal civic life. women participated in charitable societies and benevolent organizations and patriotic festivities, public sell visices and even in party political gatherings in the first days of the new republic. even more important i would say is that whomen came to be understood as bear herers of ri, possession natural rights. we know natural rights, are inherent and in alienable and cannot be contravened by any government. especially after 1792. when mary wolfstone craft published her seminal work of the vind kaication of rights of

women. many authors began debating, discussing, negotiating the question of women's rights. and the issue was, not that women had rights, that was now a given. but what rights did women have. did they extend to political rights and we talked about women having equal rights about men. what did that mean? and who should enforce and support those rights? in general at this time, equality or equal rights for women tended to be interpreted not in a political sense, but in terms of, women's equal ability to to have virtue, patriotism and intellect. to have these same capacities, along with men. and while to some such us today that doesn't seem as significant as possession of voting rights, i would argue that it was an increased, incredibly

significant change. women were no longer politically invisible. they were now acknowledged to have natural rights, it was just a question of what kinds of rights those should be and whether the state should have a role in guaranteeing those rights. and these principles, these revolutionary principles of equality and natural rights would provide a basis for women. in the 1840s the first women's movement would e merng by women who seized on the declaration principles of equality of natural lights. at the seneca falls convention of 1848 they would begin their declaration of sentiments, of, invoking the declaration of independence, say that all men and women are created equal. and in that declaration of sentiments in 1848 they would demand the same political rights as men. finally, what women's participation in the

revolutionary remind us of larger social changes affected by the american revolution. as wise and important as male political leaders were to the revolutionary movement, they needed the support of followers including women. by calling on ordinary americans to support the revolutionary cause, these leaders empowered ordinary men and women and transformed the basis of political participation. no longer would ordinary white citizens accept without question the dictates of their leaders. no longer would a wise virtual elite be able to assume the deferential acquiescence of the masses to their actions. once that genie was out of the bottle. it was almost impossible to put it back in again. separate and distinct ways, american men and women would down join together. one of theperiment would be an

struggle for those excluded to evoke quality and rights to demand and justify their inclusion. unique among world revolutions up to that point, the american revolution gave those who were marginalized or impressed, the principles through which they, and their advocates, could combat their own exclusion. the continuing challenge of the american revolution for us today is to interpret those principles of equality and natural rights, for our own time. thank you. >> in march, 1979, c-span began televising the u.s. house of representatives, to house hold is nationwide