Tag: Women in the American Revolution

The Stamp Act in New York, 1765, Part III

September 13, 2021 Tags: , ,
Best Revolutionary War Tour

 In solidarity with the radical Sons of Liberty, women in New York and other colonies organized as the Daughters of Liberty, using the power of the purse to reject English goods such as tea and cloth.  Wives, mothers and daughters created a sisterhood of solidarity: they advertised in newspapers and organized “spinning bees” to create homespun and teach the craft to the uninitiated.[i]  Together with “a fighting army of amazons…armed with spinning wheels” they hoped to found “a new Arcadia.”  This was the aspirational language used by Charity Clarke, a young lady in New York City to describe her vision to a cousin in London.[ii]  “Though this body is not clad with silken garments,” she wrote to him, “these limbs are armed with strength, the Soul is fortified by Virtue, and the Love of Liberty is cherished with this bosom.”[iii]  The idealism of women like Clarke expressed feminine empowerment in this new political arena.

In 1767, the New-York Gazette published the “Address to the Ladies” originally circulated in Boston.  In response to the recent Townsend Acts, it encouraged women to take action, to do their own “Manufact’ry,” make that the new fashion, and choose Labradore North American herbal tea over British East India tea.  Playing into gender roles of the era, the writer promises an amorous reward for compliance:

Throw aside your Bohea, and your green Hyson tea,

And all things with a new fashion duty;

Procure a good store of the choice Labradore,

For there’ll soon be enough here to suit ye; . . .

These do without fear and to all you’ll appear

Fair, charming, true, lovely and clever;

Tho’ the times remain darkish, young men may be sparkish

And love you much stronger than ever. [iv]

Though humorous, these creative submissions encouraged women to change their habits in service to the cause of liberty.

            Once the war began in 1775, women became even more vital to the Patriot cause by producing saltpeter for gunpowder, holding scrap drives, melting down metal from pewter plates, lead window weights, and a statue of King George III in New York’s Bowling Green into ammunition, fundraising for the army, and spinning soldiers’ uniforms on their wheels and looms.  In 1778 and 1779, compliance became law as New York passed emergency legislation called an “Act to Procure Shoes and Stockings for the New York Troops.”  Patriotism was now compulsory as fines were imposed on women who did not meet their quotas.[v] 

            Women in New York, like their New England counterparts, were leaders in supporting the war effort until the British occupation of the city at the end of 1776.  Their participation was acknowledged along the way.  For example, a 1769 accolade in a New York newspaper credits the efforts of women: “[their participation] kindled a spirit of generous Emulation” and they hoped that “the same Spirit will spread thro’ the Continent.. . .That the Ladies while they vie with each other in Skill and Industry…may vie with the men, in contributing to the Preservation and Prosperity of their Country, and equally share the Honour of it.”[vi]  Just a few years before, a public statement acknowledging and commending the participation of women in service to their country would have been almost unimaginable.  While these women participated as civilians, other women served the military—this being a homefront war—and the next stop will cover many of their contributions.

[i] Ibid, 18.

[ii] Charity Clarke, “Charity Clarke to Joseph Jekyll, June 16, 1768,” Letter, Course Packet, Women in the American Revolution, Pace University, Spring 2020, 44.

[iii] Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 216.

[iv] De Pauw, Four Traditions, 15.

[v] Ibid, 16; Emergency Legislation Passed Prior to December, 1917, United States Department of Justice (Washington Government Printing Office, 1918), 2.

[vi] De Pauw, Four Traditions, 16.

The Stamp Act in New York, 1765, Part II

June 29, 2021 Tags:
Catherine Brass Yates (Mrs. Richard Yates)

Here’s Part II of the “Stamp Act in New York, 1765”, which is covered on the walking tour “Washington and Hamilton in New York City,” along with other stories of women in the American Revolution:

Just a few months later, on December 6, 1765, in resistance to the Stamp Act which included a tax on wedding certificates, the New-York Gazette published an announcement: “We hear that the young Ladies of this Place are determined to Join Hands with none but such as will to the utmost endeavor to abolish the Custom of marrying with License.”[i] Other ladies protested by rejecting the beloved cloth and fashionable “rich brocade” manufactured in England, dusting off their old spinning wheels, and committing to a tedium of spinning their own cloth. The attachment to fine English cloth was so dyed in the wool, so to speak, that some women lamented wearing unfashionable homespun; but newly patriotic women implored all women to show pride in “clothes of your own make and spinning”.[ii]  It was a tough sell to some New Yorkers.  In the New-York Gazette, in “A Letter from a young Lady in Town to her Friend in the Country,” the writer expressed the great indignity of wearing homespun: “Must we in nothing be distinguished from meer country dowdies?  Must the refinements of a thousand years give way to the ignorance that prevailed” at a time when “ladies were so grossly ignorant of the charms of dress, and so entirely void of taste?”[iii]  Over time, as patriotism surged, homespun became “a badge of honor and a visible political statement” for women who supported the great cause of liberty.[iv]  Parliament, confronted by the nonimportation pact that was bolstered by women, repealed the Stamp Act in 1766.  When news of this victory reached New York City, women and men celebrated here at the Commons as the Sons of Liberty raised the first Liberty Pole—a Roman symbol of public defiance to oppression.[v]  Nevertheless, it was a short-lived victory.  More taxes were imposed on the colonists from the Townshend Acts in 1767 to the Tea Act in 1773.  As Britain asserted its authority and demands for revenue, resistance increased, and women continued to exercise their agency as housewives, consumers, and shopkeepers by making purchasing decisions based on what was good for the colonies.

[i] Linda De Pauw, Four Traditions: Women of New York During the American Revolution, (Albany: New York State Bicentennial Commission, 1974), 14.

[ii] Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers, 16.

[iii] Belinda. “A Letter from a young Lady in Town to her Friend in the Country.” New York Gazette or the Weekly Post-Boy, October 30, 1765.

[iv] Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers, 17.

[v] Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 203.

The Stamp Act in New York, 1765, Part I

June 1, 2021 Tags: , , ,
Stamp Act in New York City, 1765

The Stamp Act, instated by Parliament in 1765, was the first internal tax added to the cost of products, paper goods, including newspapers, almanacs, legal documents, diplomas, playing cards, dice, and marriage certificates.  The act was poorly timed, imposed during an economic depression of rampant unemployment, inflation, and poverty.  British mercantile houses withheld credit for businesses in New York and called in debts from tradesmen and shopkeepers, creating a ripple effect on artisans and farmers.  With an influx of cheap clothing and furniture from England’s overstocked warehouses, local artisans and businesses found it more and more difficult to compete.  As domestic purchasing declined, colonial currency lost its value.  Shops closed, merchants went bankrupt, and laborers lost their work and wages.  The recently built New Gaol [Jail] in today’s City Hall Park became a debtors’ prison occupied by many of those affected by the depression.  A New Yorker at the time remarked that “trade in this part of the world is come to so wretched a pass that you would imagine the plague had been here.”[i] The Stamp Act not only set a precedent for adding a tax on top of the cost of goods but most flagrantly violated the British constitutional precept of “no taxation without representation.”[ii]  In defiance, the newly formed Sons of Liberty advocated for a nonimportation pact among the colonists until the tax was repealed. Nine of the thirteen colonies met at the old City Hall on Wall Street in October 1765, in what was called the Stamp Act Congress, and agreed to halt the import of British goods until the act was repealed:

At a general Meeting of the Merchants of the City of New-York, trading to Great-Britain…they came to the following Resolutions…That in all Orders they send out to Great-Britain, for Goods or Merchandize, of any Nature, Kind of Quality whatsoever, usually imported from Great-Britain, they will direct their Correspondents not to ship them, unless the Stamp Act be repealed.[iii]

[i] Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 192.

[ii] Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 198.

[iii] “No stamped paper to be had,” Philadelphia: Printed by Hall & Franklin. Philadelphia, 1765, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/98160405 (accessed March 5, 2020).