What's the best book about everyday life during the American Revolution?

October 11, 2006 1:31 PM

What is the best book about everyday life during the American Revolution? Books focusing on the lives of women would be especially helpful.

I've looked over the older questions about the American Revolution, and I've gotten lots of good recommendations for books about the era, but I'm looking for something specifically focused on regular people of all classes. Historical fiction is okay, but not preferred -- I'd like something that I can trust to be as accurate as possible, as I'm looking for sources for a novel of my own.

posted by sugarfish to education (10 comments total)

A Midwife's Tale is a pretty interesting supplemented diary about women's health - family health really. They interventions they used in childbirth and healthcare, the methods they used to travel and the organization of a community are part of what is discussed. A nice read too.
posted by dog food sugar at 1:43 PM on October 11, 2006

A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier by Joseph Plumb Martin is required reading.
posted by Uncle Jimmy at 1:45 PM on October 11, 2006

America's Women by Gail Collins has a section on the lives of women during the American Revolution, and is overall a very interesting read.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:53 PM on October 11, 2006 [1 favorite]

I'll second "A Midwife's Tale." It focuses exclusively on the life of Martha Ballard. She seems to have been a bit atypical, but the picture you get of her life and times is really vivid.
posted by oddman at 1:56 PM on October 11, 2006

Well, Suzanne Lebsock's _Free Women of Petersburg_ is a standard read, though it's got a longer scope than you are looking for (womens status in VA between 1784-1860, and the book is thematic rather than chronological.)

For a more straight up citizen-soldier account, you could do worse than The Minutemen and their World by Gross, which is an early community study about the town of Concord, MA.

As far as those two go, they're both Bancroft winners, which is a pretty big deal for a pretty small subset of the population.
posted by absalom at 4:47 PM on October 11, 2006

Try The Unknown American Revolution by Gary B. Nash for the political options facing the colonist-in-the-street during the revolution
posted by Raybun at 5:05 PM on October 11, 2006

A second for A Midwife's Tale. It's post-Revolution, but will probably suit your needs quite well.
posted by jdroth at 5:41 PM on October 11, 2006

For New York, one of the standard sources is Edward Countryman, A People in Revolution--a philosophically-informed analysis of the different classes that participated in the revolt.

An interesting recent collection of essays is The Other New York: The American Revolution Beyond New York City; it focuses on the responses of farmers and merchants on Long Island and upstate NY to the British, and the confrontations that took place between the people, the Continentals, and the British. The delving into minutiae gives this book an excellent perspective on the kind of thing you're looking for.
posted by nasreddin at 7:50 PM on October 11, 2006

Awesome, thanks everyone!
posted by sugarfish at 4:56 PM on October 12, 2006

The author of A Midwive's Tale has another book on women in the colonial period (called something like Good Wives) - it's a really good introductory text.
posted by jb at 10:33 AM on October 20, 2006