Not Your Father's Founders (29 page)

The Acts of King George III and Parliament

The British government needed revenue to pay for the 1754–63 French and Indian War, a long-running conflict between France and Britain that spread to the American colonies. One way to get the money was to raise taxes on American colonists, since they benefited from the war. The result was the Stamp Act of 1765.

The British neglected to confer with the colonists before enacting the new law. The colonists, who objected to being taxed without representation, rebelled against King George III and Parliament. Their displeasure drew British retaliation in the form of the Intolerable Acts of 1774.

The British Parliament passed the Tea Act on May 10, 1773. Strangely enough, it was not designed to raise revenues in the American colonies. In fact, it did not levy any new taxes. Parliament's goal was to rescue a British business, the East India Company, which was experiencing financial difficulties, partly because it had eighteen million pounds of unsold tea in its inventory. Under the terms of the Tea Act, the company would ship the unsold tea directly to the colonies and sell it via British agents at a lower price than local merchants could. American political leaders suspected a plot. They believed that the Tea Act was a ploy to elicit popular support for the taxes already in place and undermine local merchants' business. Their opposition led to the Boston Tea Party.

The British government was not pleased with the colonists' sometimes violent reaction to the Stamp/Tea Acts. In response, it passed four punitive laws called the Intolerable Acts, which placed new regulatory burdens on the citizens of Massachusetts and increased their opposition to the king and Parliament. (A fifth law dealt with enlarging the borders of Quebec.)

The Intolerable Acts included the Boston Port Act (a ban on shipping or receiving goods within the harbor of Boston); the Administration of Justice Act (stronger enforcement of the laws aimed at rioters and other people who defied British law); the Massachusetts Government Act (which strengthened the powers of the government of the province of the Massachusetts Bay); the Quartering Act (which forced colonists to provide living quarters for British officers and soldiers in places where no barracks existed); and the Quebec Act (which expanded the province of Quebec and allowed Catholics in Quebec to practice their faith openly).

The sequence of events stemming from these acts led to famous events in American history such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Revolutionary War—and independence.

Contributions of Women

There was never enough money or materiel to keep the American fighting forces supplied throughout the war. In 1780, several prominent ladies living in Philadelphia decided, after the fall of Charleston, South Carolina, to alleviate the shortages as much as they could. Esther de Berdt Reed was instrumental in forming the Philadelphia Ladies Association.

Esther de Berdt was born in London, England, on October 22, 1746. Later, she met Joseph Reed, an American who had studied law there and lived with her family. He became Washington's secretary and aide-de-camp and governor of Pennsylvania. She married him in 1769 and moved with him to Philadelphia shortly thereafter. Despite her English upbringing, she became highly supportive of the American independence movement.

Reed gathered some of the leading ladies of Philadelphia to collect as much money as possible to supplement what little General Washington could access after hearing about the American soldiers' dearth of supplies and food. The general was not enthusiastic about their support. His first reaction to the association's offer was “Thanks, but no thanks,” even though he had once lamented to Joseph Reed that the shortage of funds would mean the loss of his army. On second thought, he relented. Washington asked the ladies to use the money they collected to make 1,000 shirts for the soldiers. That idea took hold. They made 2,200 shirts!

Reed's original plan was to raise money and turn it over to Martha Washington, who would then forward it to General Washington. Reed appointed herself treasurer of the association to facilitate the transfer.

The ladies used a unique approach for the time. They went door to door across the city for donations and supplies. The people of Philadelphia were happy to help, even if George Washington spurned it at first. Approximately 1,600 Philadelphians contributed.

The women heeded Washington's request and began sewing. They amassed a hefty amount of money to support their efforts. The association raised approximately $7,500 in the short time it was in existence (1780–1781).

Reed and her associates accomplished more than just sewing shirts. They established a precedent by bringing women together to support the independence movement and creating a place for them to gather without violating social norms imposed on them by contemporary standards. Their innovation encouraged women elsewhere to launch their own organizations.

Sadly, Esther Reed did not live to see her idea evolve. She died of an unknown illness in Flemington, New Jersey, on September 18, 1780, where she and her six children had fled to evade British troops who were threatening to invade Philadelphia. Esther was thirty-four at the time.

Sarah Franklin Bache (1743–1808), Benjamin Franklin's only daughter, stepped in to assume the leadership of the Ladies Association and complete the project. Similar groups sprang up in Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and other states.

There was a certain amount of crossover between the Daughters of Liberty and the Ladies Association of Philadelphia. Reed, Bache, and Martha Washington were all active with both groups. The Daughters of Liberty was established around 1770. It was composed of women who boycotted British goods and made up for them by making their own.

The group was not a traditional organization with officers or a set agenda. It was a loosely banded bunch of women whose goal was to exert their sometimes underestimated power to lessen American dependence on British goods by using their individual skills in a cottage industry style.

Some of the Daughters of Liberty were so dedicated to their cause that they would not allow gentleman callers into their homes for themselves or their daughters if they were not sympathetic to the patriot cause.

Women, sometimes joined by men, would gather together on village squares and hold spinning contests which they called “spinning bees.” The products they created were called “homespun.” Their tactic worked. They made Americans less dependent on British goods and created innovative products in the process.

The women also made bullets, uniforms, and other products for the soldiers and distributed petitions protesting British laws and policies. They may not have been fighting their war on the battlefields, but their contributions helped mitigate British influence in the colonies—in the decidedly ladylike fashion that was the standard at the time.