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American Revolution Role of women Main article: Women in the American Revolution Women contributed to the American Revolution in many ways and were involved on both sides. Formal politics did not include women, but ordinary domestic behaviors became charged with political significance as Patriot women confronted a war which permeated all aspects of political, civil, and domestic life. They participated by boycotting British goods, spying on the British, following armies as they marched, washing, cooking, and tending for soldiers, delivering secret messages, and even fighting disguised as men in a few cases, such as Deborah Samson. Mercy Otis Warren held meetings in her house and cleverly attacked Loyalists with her creative plays and histories.[152] '''Many women also acted as nurses or campfollowers, tending to the solider' wounds and buying and selling goods for them. Many of these campfollowers ended up in actual combat, like Madam John Turchin, who led her husband's regiment into battle.''' Above all, women continued the agricultural work at home to feed their families and the armies. They maintained their families during their husbands' absences and sometimes after their deaths.[153]

American women were integral to the success of the boycott of British goods,[154] as the boycotted items were largely household items such as tea and cloth. Women had to return to knitting goods, and to spinning and weaving their own cloth—skills that had fallen into disuse. In 1769, the women of Boston produced 40,000 skeins of yarn, and 180 women in Middletown, Massachusetts, wove 20,522 yards (18,765 m) of cloth.[153] Many women were tasked with gathering food, money, clothes, and other materials during the war to help the soldiers. >  A woman's loyalty to her husband could become an open political act, especially for women in America committed to men who remained loyal to the King. Legal divorce, usually rare, was granted to Patriot women whose husbands supported the King.[155][156]

Quote 1: "Campfollowers are the civilians who follow an army selling goods and services and performing support function. Wives and prostitutes may have worked as campfollowers, but the categories were by no means identical....Madam John Turchin, who moved beyond the role of wife when she took command of her husband's regiment during a Civil War calvery skirmish...Campfollowers were often drawn into combat." Pauw, Linda Grant De. (1994). Roles of women in the American revolution and the Civil War. (Homefront to Front Lines: Women in Wartime). Social Education, 58(2), 77-79. Quote 2: "Frequently women organized drives for collecting money, clothing, food, and scare materials. " Cometti, Elizabeth. “Women in the American Revolution.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 3, 1947, pp. 329–346. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/361443. Accessed 12 Mar. 2020.