The publication of The Secret Soldier in 1975 coincided with two significant developments in American culture: preparations for the nation’s bicentennial and the second-wave feminist movement. The impending 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1976 renewed public attention to the American Revolution and the nation’s founding history. Bicentennial commemorations took place across the United States, including exhibitions, historical programs, reenactments, and other public events focused on the Revolutionary era. Simultaneously, the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s challenged established gender roles and inequalities in education, employment, politics, and family life. The period also saw the expansion of women’s history as scholars increasingly examined women’s experiences and contributions that had received limited attention in conventional historical accounts.

McGovern’s biography appeared within this cultural environment. Its Revolutionary setting connected Sampson’s life to the history receiving renewed attention during the approach to the bicentennial, while its focus on a woman who enters military service despite women’s exclusion from formal enlistment paralleled contemporary debates about women’s social and occupational roles. In The Secret Soldier, Deborah repeatedly encounters restrictions associated with her gender: She receives fewer educational opportunities than the boys in the Thomas household, faces expectations that she will marry and raise a family, and knows that women can’t formally enlist in the Continental Army. These aspects of Sampson’s story concern education, employment, and access to roles traditionally reserved for men, all areas of gender inequality contested during the second-wave feminist movement. The biography’s 1975 publication also placed Sampson’s 18th-century experiences within a period when women’s lives were receiving increased attention in historical scholarship.