WORDS BY Anthony Ruggiero

​The American Revolution marked a turning point in the lives of colonists living in America who, after years of perceived mistreatment by the British, finally declared their independence. Although this separation from Britain was meant to benefit all those who advocated for it in the colonies, the results for American women offered no discernable improvement in their lives. Women were often criticised for their attempts at political participation. Additionally, women were forced to rely on their male counterparts for such things as landholding. Furthermore, although it could be argued that women used their spouses as vehicles to promote their political agenda, their reliance on their spouse was a representation of the gender barriers that existed during the time period. Women were also subjected to brutal treatment that was emblematic of their subordinate role in society.

Throughout the events of the revolution and thereafter, women actively participated in promoting the agenda of revolutionists and unsuccessfully advocated for political recognition. For example, in 1775 Providence, when tea was being burned in opposition to Britain’s tea tax, women actively participated in the protest.[1] The Virginia Gazette article, Providence Women Burn Tea, recognized women’s participation within the protest, however it perpetuated a stereotype that women have an “evil tendency of continuing the habit of drinking tea.”[2] Additionally, the article also used a negative description of women to represent the burning of the tea as the “funeral of Madam Souchong.”[3] The article’s description perpetuates the contemporary societal view of women as ‘low’; as prostitutes.[4] Additionally, women’s attempted involvement in politics was also scrutinized. For example, Jane Adams advocated for the rights of women to be recognized in the new nation to her husband, congressman, John Adams, stating that women would cause a “rebellion” if their voices were not heard[5]. In response John Adams described her boldness as laughable, thus showing his disregard for her claims.[6]

​            Although it can be argued that some women, as part of the social elite in society, were able to promote their political views by using their status, there reliance on their male counterpart also demonstrated their role remained as inferior. For example, a land sale by Anne Holden, a member of the Daughters of Liberty, to four men can be viewed as way to insert herself into the political framework, since women were unable to vote despite the size of their landholding[7]. Through giving her land to these four men, it can be argued that she sought to influence the men’s voting choice. However, this action also showed the reliance of women on the male gender to promote a female political agenda. Lastly, women during this period were subjected to brutal treatment. For example, Mary Philips described being raped by a British soldier who claimed she was secretly working with “rebels.”[8]

Despite the promotion of female stereotypes and male oppression, many women continued to actively participate in promoting the agenda of revolutionists and advocated (unsuccessfully) for political recognition. For example, The Daughters of Liberty were a political group that surfaced in response to British taxation in the colonies during the American Revolution[9], in particular the Townshend Acts of 1767, which were a series of measures that imposed customs duties on imported British goods such as glass, paints, lead, paper and tea. According to Carol Berkin’s film, Women as Major Participants in the Revolutionary War, women took a political stance by burning tea, and instead of buying English cloth, they would create their own, which became known as "Liberty Cloth.”[10] Although a good majority of women were unable to leave their homes during the Revolution because they were expected to take care of their children, this time period resulted in what would be known as ‘republican motherhood’. This term applied to women who were primarily educated in order to help educate their children in the ways of ‘moral living’.[11] Women also played a pivotal role in influencing their children’s political views.[12] President Thomas Jefferson remarked,​

​During the Revolution, women also began questioning their inferior status in relation to their husbands. Many women published poems citing their frustrations and their desires to be free. For example, one line from a poem read, “That woman, dear woman, shall ever be free. Nor more shall the wife, all as meek as a lamb.”[14] This time period spawned rhetoric of freedom from both Great Britain, as well as in society for women.
The American Revolution was supposed to liberate all those colonists of European descent from oppression, but instead only highlighted the oppression women faced within early American society. Despite attempts to participate in politics, women such as Jane Adams, were still lambasted for their attempts. Furthermore, women were forced to rely on men within the upper classes of society in an attempt to promote their political views. While women attempted to succeed, societally and politically men benefitted.

​Anthony Ruggiero is currently a High School History Teacher in New York City, New York.  In addition to teaching, he has been published in several magazines, such as History Is Now, Historic-UK, Tudor Life, Discover Britain, and The Odd Historian. Anthony has also written for the Culture-Exchange blog, and The Freelance History Writer blog. 

​His work can also be viewed on his Twitter handle: @Anthony10290122

​[1] Douglas-Bower, Devon. Debt Slavery: The Forgotten History of Sharecropping I The Hampton Institute. November 7, 2013. http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/sharecropping.html.
[2] Debt Slavery: The Forgotten History of Sharecropping.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Jim Crow (article) | Period 6: 1865-1898. Khan Academy. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-us-history/period-6/apush-south-after-civil-war/a/jim-crow.
[5] Jim Crow (article) | Period 6: 1865-1898.
[6] Douglas-Bower, Devon. Slavery by Another Name: The Convict Lease System I The Hampton Institute. 2013.
[7] Slavery by Another Name: The Convict Lease System.
[8] Jim Crow (article) | Period 6: 1865-1898.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Oskin, Becky. Why US Still Needs a Civil Rights Movement. LiveScience. August 29, 2013. http://www.livescience.com/39291-america-still-needs-civil-rights.html.
[11] Why US Still Needs a Civil Rights Movement.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Love, David A. Slavery in the US Prison System. Prisons | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 2017.
[14] Love, Slavery in the US Prison System.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.

​If you are waking up right now, chances are you have had, what clinicians term, one period of consolidated sleep. That is, you went to bed yesterday evening and awoke the following day - this morning. In most parts of the world - particularly the industrialised world - consolidated sleep is the norm. By and large, our patterns of sleep and wakefulness (known as our circadian rhythm) are governed by two things: the cycle of nighttime and daytime; the daily demands on our time. The former is mandated by the movements of the planets (not much we can do about that), the latter is determined by a multitude of factors, perhaps the most significant being the daily work that we have to do. In a sense, for the vast majority of people, we don’t have much control over this either. The Industrial Revolution and state-sponsored education have tended to organise the daily routines of most people around the world, meaning that - exceptions notwithstanding - we carry out our ‘work’ during one continuous block during the day and sleep in one continuous block at night (if we are lucky). It was not always the case. In fact, until relatively recently your ancestors would most probably have maintained a bi-modal sleeping pattern. They had two sleeps a night.

When people actually took to their beds for their first sleep was, in part, also related to the darkness because, as Professor Ekirch plainly stated in Segmented Sleep in Preindustrial Societies:

“As in many preindustrial cultures, sleep onset depended less on a fixed timetable than on the existence of things to do.”

Since pre industrial England relied so heavily on the daylight to accomplish these ‘things to do’ - our daily toils - once the night arrived it would have been near-impossible to conduct anything except the least arduous of tasks, such as talking, eating, or sleeping. If the work had been accomplished for the day - in the hours of light during which it was possible to accomplish it - then the timing of the ‘first sleep’ need not have been rigid. However, it cannot be overstated just how utterly devoid of light the night could become in a world before the Industrial Revolution. Unless the moon rendered otherwise, darkness would have been near absolute for anyone who could not afford artificial light - candles, oil lamps and such. And this is where the answer to the question of why we no longer have two sleeps at night is to be found: artificial light. 

Perhaps the more important question isn’t really why we used to have two sleeps and a ‘break’ but why we stopped the practice. The wealthier classes were perhaps the first to move away from the prehistoric ‘two sleep’ pattern because of their earlier access to artificial light - candles, oil lamps, wood fires etc. The Industrial Revolution forced the proliferation of light sources and the brightness of those sources across the British Isles. Gas lights - never really ubiquitous outside of major urban centres - nonetheless opened up the night to those who had hitherto retreated from it. Once the electric lightbulb, with its powerful luminescence and lower cost, changed the British night from dark to light, the practice of two sleeps quickly faded into obscurity. No more was it necessary to stop work when the sun went below the horizon; no longer was it necessary to fear the night and barricade oneself behind locked doors. In short, people began experiencing the night (for both work and leisure) and sleeping later - to the point where the first sleep became the only sleep.  

In a very short period of time indeed - perhaps as little as one hundred and fifty years - your ancestors went from a nocturnal pattern of sleep that had endured for millennia whereby we slept and then woke and then slept again, to a consolidated sleep determined primarily by the growth of artificial light. Your ancestors from almost certainly followed the practice of two sleeps. What is perhaps equally important is that, since England was the first country to industrialise, they were also probably the first to abandon the practice.

​Dr. Elliott L. Watson (Co-Editor of Versus History)
@thelibrarian6

Bibliography
Ekirch, A. Roger. Segmented Sleep in Preindustrial Societies. (http://www.history.vt.edu/Ekirch/sleep_39_03_715.pdf )
Ekirch, A. Roger. Sleep We Have Lost: Post-industrial Slumber in the British Isles (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5f7d/10e30df23c62edc499ff26e909764e8946ad.pdf?_ga=2.82364371.494877159.1561369868-1007184158.1561369868)
Koslofsky, Craig. Evening's Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge and New York Cambridge University Press 2011)

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​“Thus the advance of the frontier has meant a steady movement away from the influence of Europe, a steady growth of independence on American lines.” 
― Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History

​In his 2001 book, The American West: The Invention of a Myth, David Murdoch asserts that America is ‘exceptional’ inasmuch as it is the only country to have chosen its own self-image: "No other nation has taken a time and place from its past and produced a construct of the imagination equal to America's creation of the West". The ‘selection’ of a particular place and time in history to use in the assembly of a symbolic self-image, if true, is a remarkable piece of history-making. ​

The ‘Wild West’, or the ‘Old West’, is so dense with historical imagery and meaning that a single mention of either of these two terms immediately conjures in the mind, gunslingers, sheriffs, wagon trails, gold rushes, saloons, western expansion, the frontier, Davy Crockett, grit and American determination, among countless other imaginings. But did you know that this foundational imagery (imagined or otherwise) is rooted in a period of only thirty years after the American Civil War? That’s 1865 to 1895.