This unit introduces the rich literary and political world occupied by educated American women during the Revolutionary era. Primary source materials such as women’s letters and diaries, as well as examples of the contemporary novels, newspapers, and poetry mentioned within their pages, reveal the range of subjects and genres that captivated the attention of these eighteenth-century women, the keen insights that they used in assessing politics and history, and the enthusiasm with which they discussed the plots of novels and poetry. You will learn that many elite American women, like their husbands or male relatives who participated more publicly in the events of the Revolutionary era, read, wrote, and had opinions about issues of public concern.