Women of the Early Republic

Discover American history in the early republic through the daily lives of four women: Anne “Nancy” Home Shippen Livingston, Rebecca Lloyd Nicholson, Margaret Bayard Smith, and Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton.

Through their writings in letters, diaries, commonplace books, and other papers, these elite women recorded their first-hand experiences of the new political landscape caused by the American Revolution and the foundation of the new American republic, though women’s lives remained circumscribed by the prevailing social order.