Colonial Dames and Good Wives by Alice Morse Earle

We are constantly hearing the statement reiterated, that the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution was the first association of women ever formed for patriotic purpose. This assertion shows a lamentable ignorance of Revolutionary history; for a century and a quarter ago, before the War of the Revolution, patriotic societies of women were formed all over the country, and called Daughters of Liberty. Our modern bands should be distinguished by being called the first patriotic-hereditary societies of women.

As we approach Revolutionary days, it is evident that the women of all the colonies were as deeply stirred as were the men at the constant injustice and growing tyranny of the British government, and they were not slow in openly averring their abhorrence and revolt against this injustice. Their individual action consisted in the wearing only of garments of homespun manufacture; their concerted exertions in gathering in patriotic bands to spin, and the signing of compacts to drink no more of the taxed tea, that significant emblem of British injustice and American revolt.

The earliest definite notice of any gathering of Daughters of Liberty was in Providence in 1766, when seventeen young ladies met at the house of Deacon Ephraim Bowen and spun all day long for the public benefit, and assumed the name Daughters of Liberty. The next meeting the little band had so increased in numbers that it had to meet in the Court House. At about the same time another band of daughters gathered at Newport, and an old list of the members has been preserved. It comprised all the beautiful and brilliant young girls for which Newport was at that time so celebrated. As one result of this patriotic interest, the President and the first graduating class of Brown University, then called Rhode Island College, were clothed, at Commencement in 1769, in fabrics of American homespun manufacture. The senior class of the previous year at Harvard had been similarly dressed.

These little bands of patriotic women gathered far and wide throughout New England. At one meeting seventy linen wheels were employed. In Newbury, Beverly, Rowley, Ipswich, spinning matches were held. Let me show how the day was spent. I quote from the _Boston News-Letter_: --

Rowley. A number of thirty-three respectable ladies of the town met at sunrise [this was in July] with their wheels to spend the day at the house of the Rev'd Jedidiah Jewell in the laudable design of a spinning match. At an hour before sunset, the ladies then appearing neatly dressed, principally in homespun, a polite and generous repast of American production was set for their entertainment, after which being present many spectators of both sexes, Mr. Jewell delivered a profitable discourse from Romans xii. 2: Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

You will never find matters of church and patriotism very far apart in New England; so I learn that when they met in Ipswich the Daughters of Liberty were also entertained with a sermon. The Newbury patriots drank Liberty Tea, and listened to a sermon on the text Proverbs xxxi. 19. Another text used at one of these gatherings was from Exodus xxxv. 25: "And all the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands."

The women of Virginia were early in the patriotic impulses, yet few proofs of their action or determination remain. In a Northern paper, the _Boston Evening Post_ of January 31, 1770, we read this Toast to the Southerners: --

NEW TOASTS.

The patriotic ladies of Virginia, who have nobly distinguished themselves by appearing in the Manufactures of America, and may those of the Massachusetts be laudably ambitious of not being outdone by Virginians.

The wise and virtuous part of the Fair Sex in Boston and other Towns, who being at length sensible that by the consumption of Teas they are supporting the Commissioners & other Tools of Power, have voluntarily agreed not to give or receive any further Entertainments of that Kind, until those Creatures, together with the Boston Standing Army, are removed, and the Revenue Acts repealed.

May the disgrace which a late venal & corrupt Assembly has brought upon a Sister Colony, be wiped away by a Dissolution.

This is pretty plain language, but it could not be strange to the public ear, for ere this Boston women had been appealed to in the press upon this same subject.

In the _Massachusetts Gazette_, as early as November 9, 1767, these lines show the indignant and revolutionary spirit of the time:

Young ladies in town and those that live round / Let a friend at this season advise you. / Since money's so scarce and times growing worse, / Strange things may soon hap and surprise you. / First then throw aside your high top knots of pride / Wear none but your own country linen. / Of economy boast. Let your pride be the most / To show cloaths of your own make and spinning. / What if homespun they say is not quite so gay / As brocades, yet be not in a passion, / For when once it is known this is much wore in town, / One and all will cry out 'Tis the fashion. / And as one and all agree that you'll not married be / To such as will wear London factory / But at first sight refuse, till e'en such you do choose / As encourage our own manufactory.

Soon these frequent appeals, and the influence of the public and earnest revolt of the Sons of Liberty, resulted in a public compact of Boston women. It is thus recorded in the Boston press: --

The _Boston Evening Post_: --

Monday, February 12, 1770.

The following agreement has lately been come into by upwards of 300 Mistresses of Families in this Town; in which Number the Ladies of the highest rank and Influence, that could be waited upon in so short a Time, are included.

BOSTON, January 31, 1770.