Although the book Following the Drum: Women at the Valley Forge Encampment was published in 2009, I just recently discovered it. For shame! Written by Nancy K. Loane who is a former seasonal ranger at Valley Forge National Historical Park, it describes the women, of high social status, middling, and low, who spent time at Valley Forge in 1777-1778 and at other winter encampments. Women whose names you are likely to recognize—Martha Washington, Catherine Greene, Lucy Knox, Rebekah Biddle, Lady Stirling, and Alice Shippen—receive considerable attention, in part, because there is a good deal of source material available: documents, diaries, and letters. But there are also chapters devoted to the women of Washington’s “family,”—his slaves, servants, and spies—as well as to camp followers, many of whom were wives of serving soldiers. Mostly they washed, cooked, did laundry, nursed the ill and wounded, and cared for children and babies, with only grudging recognition and little recompense. Ms. Loane provides many details about their roles and the hardships they endured. Very readable, the book is well researched and documented. You can see a video of Ms. Loane talking about the book on C-SPAN.

You may be somewhat perplexed by the above print which often appeared as a model for women during the eighteenth century. It utilizes a compass, a Masonic symbol, an emblem of virtue representing restraint and self-control, to illustrate a lesson in conduct. The ideal woman of that time was supposed to stay within the bounds circumscribed by the compass and “Enter not into the way of the wicked and go not in the path of evil men.” At the corners of the print are behaviors of “fallen” women. In the upper left a mother is not caring for her child properly; the infant appears to be slipping from her lap. In the top right a woman is shown working in a tavern. In the lower left a woman is standing in a street selling things to make money. In the lower right we see a prostitute soliciting some men. All of these activities are, it is suggested, inappropriate and demeaning for a woman. The reward for behaving “properly” is written around the circle: “Keep within compass and you shall be sure to avoid many troubles that others endure.” In addition to proscribing certain behaviors on the part of women the illustration describes the appropriate relationship between husband and wife: in a marriage the woman should tend to the family and depend on the man to work and provide for them; her role is to be the “Virtuous Woman” and “a Crown to her Husband.”

For teachers among this blog’s readers, this print could be the basis for an interesting lesson on the role of women in the eighteenth century.

The illustration is a contemporary English print published between 1785 and 1805, engraved by Robert Dighton, and published by Carington Bowles. It is at the Winterthur Museum.

The illustration is of “April” in the 1767 calendar of prints featuring women published by Carington Bowles & Robert Sayer in London. It is interesting to observe the seasonal changes in clothing and outdoor activities. The calendar and other popular prints, in all likelihood, made their way to the colonies.

Thanks to the post on the blog “18th century women in American history” for the image and information. It can be found HERE.

In 1745, when Eliza Lucas was twenty-three, she married Charles Pinckney of Charleston. They lived for a time in England where Pinckney served as a colonial agent. In 1758 they returned to South Carolina, where one month later Charles died of malaria. Once more it fell to Eliza to manage the family plantations. Her two sons remained in school in England; her daughter was with her. It became quickly apparent that the plantations were in financial difficulty: there had been a severe drought and the overseers were found to be incompetent or dishonest. She found a new overseer and wrote to a family friend in England in 1760 that “if it please God to prosper us and grant good Seasons, I hope to clear all next year.” She continued:

I find it requires great care, attention and activity to attend properly to a Carolina Estate, tho’ but a moderate one, to do ones duty and make it turn to account, that I find I have as much business as I can go through of one sort or other. Perhaps ’tis better for me, and I believe it is. Had there not been a necessity for it, I might have sunk to the grave by this time in that Lethargy of stupidity which had seized me after my mind had been violently agitated by the greatest shock it ever felt. But a variety of imployment gives my thoughts a relief from melloncholy subjects, tho ’tis but a temporary one, and gives me air and exercise, which I believe I should not have had resolution enough to take if I had not been roused to it by motives of duty and parental affection. . . .

In another letter to an English friend that same year Eliza Pinckney expresses some concerns: “A great cloud hangs over this province. We are continually insulted by the Indians on our back settlements, and a violent kind of small pox rages in Charles Town that almost puts a stop to all business.” In the last letter in this letterbook dated February 1762 she writes rather wistfully to a family friend in England:

What great doings you have had in England since i left it. You people that live in the great world in the midst of Scenes of Entertainment and pleasure abroad, of improving studies and polite amusement at home, must be very good to think of your friends in this remote Corner of the Globe. I really think it a great virtue in you . . . writing now and then to an old woman in the Willds of America. . . .

How different is the life we live here; vizeting is the great and almost only amusement of late years. However, as to my own particular, I live agreeable enough to my own taste, as much so as I can separated from my dear boys.

I love a Garden and a book; and they are all my amusement except I include one of the greatest Businesses of my life (my attention to my dear little girl) under that article. For a pleasure it certainly is &c. especially to a mind so tractable and a temper so sweet as hers. For, I thank God, I have an excellent soil to work upon, and by the Divine Grace hope the fruit will be answerable to my indeavours in the cultivation.

For information on Eliza Lucas Pinckney during and after the Revolution see In the Words of Women, pages 144 and 150-51. Her Letterbook can be found HERE.

I have always liked diaries and letters that describe “a day in the life of” a particular girl or woman. Here is one by the amazing Eliza Lucas who, while she was still in her teens, was responsible for managing three plantations in South Carolina for her father, a British army officer posted in Antigua. (See another post here.) With her mother ill (she died in 1759), her two brothers at school in England, and her younger sister Polly at home, Eliza was the one who took upon herself the business of operating the plantations and making them profitable. To this end, she carried on an extensive correspondence with her father who provided instructions and advice, and considered Eliza’s suggestions for improvements. Eliza’s life wasn’t all business as her letter describing her daily routine, ca. April 1742, to Miss Bartlett indicates.

In general I rise at 5 o’ Clock in the morning, read till Seven, then take a walk in the garden or field, see that the Servants [slaves] are at their respective business, then to breakfast. The first hour after breakfast is spent at my musick, the next is constantly employed in recolecting something I have learned least for want of practise it should be quite lost, such as French and short hand. After that I devote the rest of the time till I dress for dinner to our little Polly and two black girls who I teach to read, and if I
have my paps’s approbation (my Mamas I have got) I intend [them] is for the rest of the Negroe children—another scheme you see.

But to proceed, the first hour after dinner as the first after breakfast at musick, the rest of the afternoon in Needle work till candle light, and from that time to bed time read or write. . . . Mondays my musick Master is here. Tuesdays my friend Mrs. Chardon (about 3 miles distant) and I are constantly engaged to each other, she at our house one Tuesday—I at hers the next and this is one of the happiest days I spend at Woppoe [one of her father’s plantations]. Thursday the whole day except what the necessary affairs of the family take up is spent in writing, either on the business of the plantations, or letters to my friends. Every other Fryday, if no company, we go a vizeting so that I go abroad once a week and no oftener. . . .

Eliza was especially interested in botany and experimented with methods of growing and processing indigo which was much in demand for dying cloth by England’s textile industry. Her success in cultivating the plant and processing it in cake form suitable for export added to the wealth of southern planters and was especially important at a time when the price of rice, the cash crop, was falling. Indigo production was very labor intensive and contributed to the perpetuation of slavery in the South.

For information on Eliza Lucas Pinckney during and after the Revolution see In the Words of Women, pages 144 and 150-51. Her Letterbook can be found HERE.