5. Republican Motherhood
Following the American Revolution, there were many changes in American culture and society. Women in this new republic found new roles and opportunities. However, many of these were shrouded by their societal expectations, particularly as mothers. In order for democracy to work in this new nation, its citizens needed to be educated and virtuous. If that was going to happen, mothers needed to be the ones to do it. The ideal of a Republican Mother emerged in this context but it did not define all the women of this era.
How to cite this source?
Remedial Herstory Project Editors. "5. REPUBLICAN MOTHERHOOD" The Remedial Herstory Project. November 1, 2025. www.remedialherstory.com.
Following the American Revolution, American women’s worlds reverted into the home where education became increasingly important to support the new republic’s young citizens. Women knew significantly more than their grandmothers did about the world outside their home town and domestic comforts were becoming a new priority. At the same time, women were increasingly finding work in “suitable” professions like teaching and writing.
In the aftermath of the Revolution, new Americans learned how to realize their rights to life, liberty, and the ability to acquire and maintain property in dramatically different ways, based on their gender, race, class, and geographic location. Women in particular had to develop their own ways to achieve those lofty revolutionary goals as women lost their official voice in American politics for the next century. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written by men and did not include a single acknowledgement, privilege, or protection for women. But women, in a variety of locations and environments, were successful in finding a voice.
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Loyalist Families
Many families who did not support separation from England left the United States to live in a more politically and socially hospitable environment. Those who possessed considerable wealth were able to escape to England. Others, who found their limited property confiscated and who witnessed their Loyalists neighbors hanged for treason, traveled to new territories to start new lives.
One such family, that of Ephriam and Martha Ballard, traveled to the frontier region of Hallowell, Maine. There, Ballard established herself as a midwife and healer, delivering more than eight hundred babies in a long career. She was a trusted member of her community who saw families through childbirth, epidemics, and deaths.
Ballard’s work as a midwife allowed her to travel throughout the region. She knew the members of every family in Hallowell and the surrounding area. She was paid for her work, sometimes in coins, and frequently in food or rum.
On her family’s farm, she did the same work as a man, planting and harvesting food and herbs, and chopping wood. Indeed, all members of the family – including young children – contributed to the growth of the farm. It was a matter of survival. On the frontier, boundaries between men’s and women’s work hardly existed. Martha could be independent because her community needed her skills. Her professional career is known because she left a diary that was discovered decades after her death.
Despite the many thousands of women who performed as midwives and medical practitioners throughout the centuries, it would not be until 1849 when the first woman, Elizabeth Blackwell, would receive a medical degree in the United States. Blackwell was born in 1821 and well-educated, along with her sisters, allowing them to open a school together. While teaching was originally Blackwell’s calling, a painful incident in her young adulthood shifted her course. When a close friend lay dying, she told Blackwell that she believed she would have been spared her worst suffering if she had had a woman physician. At the time, no such thing existed, but Blackwell was determined to correct that.
In a humorous episode during her struggle to attain a medical degree, she applied to Geneva Medical College in New York state. As a cruel joke, the faculty allowed the all-male student population to vote on her application. In a twist of fate, the students unanimously voted ‘yes’ as a joke of their own. In this bizarre way, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to undertake formal medical training and to earn an M.D. at an American Institution. In 1857, she would go on to found the New York Infirmary for Women and Children along with Dr. Emily Blackwell and Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, which also provided training for women doctors.
Pioneer Birth Scene (1887), Public Domain
Defining the First Lady
Further south, another woman named Martha established precedents for a woman’s supportive role. Martha Dandrige Custis Washington, a wealthy woman from Virginia, served as the hostess of the “Republican Court,” the social circle around President George Washington. A reluctant “First Lady,” Martha nevertheless presided over the social affairs of the Washington Administration in the temporary capitols of Philadelphia and New York. Martha Washington came from upper class Virginia society in which enslaved people served the needs of those who held title to their bodies and their labor. Nevertheless, after George Washington’s death in 1800, Martha Washington freed the family’s slaves on January 1, 1801.
The role of America’s First Lady as a political confidante of the President took shape over time. Dolley Madison, wife of the country’s fourth President, abandoned her Quaker background to become a dominant force in the social scene of the country’s new capital of Washington, D.C..
During her husband’s tenure as Secretary of State, she hosted social events at the White House for President Thomas Jefferson and helped to raise funds for the Lewis and Clark expedition to the west. As First Lady, Dolley brought together Federalists and members of her husband’s Democratic-Republican party in social situations that facilitated occasional compromise between warring political factions.
The Montpelier Foundation
When the capitol was under British attack during the War of 1812, Dolley escaped the White House, saving a prized portrait of George Washington, although some think she is given too much credit as enslaved people likely saved it.
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Dolley Madison,1804, Public Domain
Republican Mothers
As American cities grew in the early nineteenth century, middle class women were expected to take responsibility for life at home, including raising children and maintaining religious and moral piety. Women and girls learned to read and write en masse and became the nation’s first consumers of books for light reading. Professional men were expected to compete in the world of work outside the home while their wives presided over the household. Some women who sought meaningful societal change outside the home became involved in social crusades to improve the lives of others, especially poor women and their children.
Magazines and books were designed with the female audience in mind, recommending fashion, etiquette, and lists of the “true” qualities of a woman: beautiful, unassuming, chaste, submissive, and domestic. It is ironic that many of the women writing these recommendations themselves actually spent much of their life in professions outside the home. It is of note that some men also championed women’s education and ideals of Republican Motherhood. In 1787, one advocate, Benjamin Rush, gave a speech called “Thoughts upon Female Education.” While many of Rush’s comments do not hide the fact that he sees women as subordinate to men, he does explain how the ability for men to pursue Rush argued that women were important actors in the economy, but primarily as “assistants” to men.
American women, Rush argued, needed knowledge of the English language, good handwriting, basic math and bookkeeping skills, and familiarity with geography and history. These skills in particular speak to the fact that, even while women were often seen as belonging within the home, many men recognized the reality that many women would support and help their husbands in running their businesses.
Inspired by the religious fervor of the Great Awakening, these women helped to found alms houses and institutions to provide aid to women whose husbands had abandoned them to alcohol. Women raised money for charity and crusaded against the evils of “demon rum.” These women were able to succeed outside the home, even as they remained firmly within the women’s sphere of action.
Middle class urban women were expected to perform “women’s work” at home while women on the frontier could leverage agency and respect in their communities because of their skills and the need for their labor.
Fanny Wright was an English heiress who immigrated to the United States in 1825. She was passionate about social reform, especially abolition, and, among her many accomplishments, became one of the first female American lecturers. When she began touring, crowds of people came to see her, regarding the “lecturing lady” as a cultural curiosity.
In the early 1800s, the demand for public schools was incredibly high and there simply weren’t enough educated men to fill the positions. Because corporal punishment was so heavily applied in schools, educated, middle class women were looked at reluctantly to take up these posts, believing that women would be unable to punish effectively. Gail Collins explained that “gender roles gave way to necessity. There simply weren’t enough men available to staff the public schools, while the pool of available educated women was huge. And the price was right. In 1838, Connecticut paid $14.50 a month to male teachers and $5.75 a month to women.” Superintendents around the country openly bragged about the productivity of the female teachers, who worked for less than half the income of the men.
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School Teacher, Public Domain
Enslaved Women and Sally Hemmings
The qualities of the “true” women or Republican Mothers, however, did not extend to enslaved women. Slaves were defined as real property. When coupled with laws that stated that children of enslaved women would also become the property of their masters, masters were essentially given a carte blanche to rape and sexually assault their female slaves. There would be no legal recourse as they could do what they wanted with their property, and they would further profit from that assault with the birth of a new slave. All this was further complicated by the horrifying reality that, at any moment, enslaved mothers could be torn from their children by sale. Wives of masters could also potentially lash out at pregnant female slaves who they believed may be carrying their husband’s child. In short, enslaved women were denied the privilege of being Republican Mothers.
Women of color had to work hard to establish spaces in which they could assert their right to life and liberty. Women on the plantation often did the same work as men in the fields. In the house, women who served as cooks or seamstresses could inhabit positions of respect. Women also served as leaders in the community of enslaved people as they taught survival skills to their children and helped to maintain families in spite of the ever-present threat of punishment and sale.
We know precious little about Sally Hemmings, who was the “property” of Thomas Jefferson (the author of the “Declaration of Independence” and the third President of the United States). Hemmings was the half sister of Jefferson’s deceased wife, Martha. We have no paintings of her, but descriptions of Sally explain that she looked similar to Martha and had a fair complexion. Historians suspect that Jefferson began a sexual relationship with Hemmings when she was approximately fifteen or sixteen years old–Jefferson was about thirty years her senior. Over the course of their relations, Sally bore Jefferson six children, four of whom survived childhood.
While in France, Sally had the opportunity to acquire her freedom; but instead, she opted to return with Jefferson to Virginia. To some, her decision to return to Virginia might seem incredulous; however, it is important to consider Hemmings’ age, her prior relationship with Jefferson and whatever trust or familiarity that afforded, and the fact that she would essentially be left on her own and required to abandon everything and everyone that she had known in Virginia. In short, it might appear that Sally chose the devil she knew rather than the devil she did not. Upon her return to Virginia, and through her intimate relationship with Jefferson, Hemmings was able to negotiate an easier life, even as she and her children remained enslaved. Two of her children, Beverly and Harriert, left Jefferson’s household at Monticello in the 1820s and were able to pass and live as white persons. Madison and Eston gained their freedom in Jefferson’s will upon his death in 1826, due to Hemmings’ negotiations..They were listed as free white people in the 1830 census. Jefferson did not free any other slaves–only the children of Sally Hemmings. Rumors of Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemmings had been made public in the early 19th century. In the mid- and late-19th century, Hemmings' children also indicated that Jefferson had fathered them. Despite these persistent rumors, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and prominent Jefferson scholars repeatedly denied that he would have fathered children with Hemmings or would have had an intimate relationship with her. It was only in the 1990s that a DNA analysis matched Jefferson and a descendant of Eston Hemmings, proving Jefferson’s paternity beyond a doubt; and in 2000, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation issued a report where they concluded that Thomas Jefferson was most likely the father of Sally Hemmings’ children.
Sally Hemmings established her identity beyond her status as the property of a President. But whether there was love in this relationship is difficult to know because of her young age when the relationship began, the power differential between slave and master, and her inability to provide true and free consent.
Sacagawea and the Corps of Discovery
One of President Jefferson’s major accomplishments in his first term was the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803. With this bold move, Jefferson nearly doubled the land area of the United States. But neither Jefferson nor anyone in Washington, D.C. had an idea of who or what lay in the new territory beyond the Mississippi River. In August of 1803, Jefferson issued a proclamation giving Merriwether Lewis and William Clark the authority to lead the Corps of Discovery to explore and document their findings in the new territory. But Lewis and Clark could not succeed on their own. They needed the assistance of Sacagawea, a Lemhi Shoshone woman.
Sacagawea had been captured by a rival tribe in her youth and forced into a marriage with a French trader who abused her. This experience, however, exposed her to a variety of native and European languages which made her all the more invaluable to the mission. She was already pregnant when she and her husband met Lewis and Clark. Eventually– with their son in tow – they became part of the Corps of Discovery. At only sixteen years of age, she would have likely hoped to serve as a guide and translator for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, navigating unfamiliar rivers and encountering villages of unfamiliar tribes, as well as reuniting with her own tribe. Sacagawea was the only woman who was part of the permanent members of the discovery group. Her role was primarily as a translator, but also as a symbol of peace. Native groups they encountered along the way were unlikely to see them as hostile because of the presence of a woman with her child. But Sacagawea also dug for roots, collected plants, and picked berries. When one of their canoes capsized, Sacagawea had the presence of mind to salvage the papers and supplies that were on board. Although many of the interactions were peaceful, some were hostile and Sacagewea served as the chief negotiator. Chiefs would sometimes offer native women for sex to Lewis and Clark’s team to convey peaceful intentions. When they reached the Pacific coast, she insisted on leaving the camp to do the final stretch to see the Pacific Ocean. Sacagawea was an invaluable guide and her vote counted equally with the men’s when votes were taken. But once the mission was over, Sacagawea received nothing. Her husband, however, was paid and given land.
When she and her husband died young, her child was raised by Clark. She became a symbol of friendship between the Corps of Discovery and native people.
But friendly interactions between natives who had lived in settled communities in the west for centuries and white explorers would not define western expansion of the 19th century. Instead many Americans would come to believe that the territories beyond the Mississippi River were “empty” and ripe for taking and “civilizing.” The concept of “Manifest Destiny,” the idea that the conquest of new lands was part of America’s destiny, inspired a rhetoric of conquest. The visual representation of Manifest Destiny was a female figure who led white Americans west to their prosperous future. It is notable that in this famous painting few women are portrayed as moving west, when in reality, so many women did.
When settlers moved west, bringing farms, schools, churches, telegraph wires, and railroads, women once again found ways to establish agency in their communities. Women and men were needed to work the land, and there was less separation between work and home, men’s work and women’s work. Once again, whatever the social or class context, women found ways to assert their value in society.
Lewis & Clark [and Sacagawea] at Three Forks, Public Domain
Conclusion
By the end of this era, so much remained in question. How would the emerging role of a Republican mother impact family dynamics? Why was it important for these women to have roles outside of their homes? Consider also the power of race in de-valuing the talents and accomplishments of enslaved women of color. How did these women fulfill roles as mothers and leaders in their communities within the horrifying limits of plantation life? To what extent does the history of American women, their herstory, need more research to be told more completely?
