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Southern Women in Revolution, 1776-1800: Personal and Political Narratives. By CYNTHIA A. KIERNER. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998. xviii, 253 pp. $34.95.
WITH an intriguing blend of conviction and deference, southern women petitioned their state legislatures for redress of a variety of grievances during and after the Revolutionary War. Widows of American soldiers tried to recover arrears in pay due to their husbands; wives of banished Tories sought their repatriation; women deserted by their husbands asked to be granted separate estates; newly freed AfricanAmerican women requested formal acknowledgment of their emancipation. In Southern Women in Revolution, Cynthia A. Kierner explores these and other moving stories of fractured families and blossoming political consciousness. Her documentary edition of ninety-eight petitions submitted by women from the Carolinas is both a fine work of social history and an illuminating examination of female citizenship.
Between 1776 and 1800, the legislatures of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia received at least 780 petitions from women, a significant increase over the previous quarter century. Kierner decided to focus...