Mary Katherine Goddard was a dedicated patriot who, as a prominent printer in Baltimore, Maryland, during the American Revolution, risked her life for the cause of independence. In 1777, the Second Continental Congress, having fled Philadelphia, entrusted Goddard with printing the first official copy of the Declaration of Independence that included the names of almost all its signers. By printing this document, known as the “Goddard Broadside,” and adding her own full name at the bottom, she became the only woman whose name appears on it. This was an act of extraordinary bravery, as it publicly identified her as a supporter of a rebellion whose outcome was uncertain.

Goddard also served as the first female postmaster in the US, a critical role she held for 14 years. However, in 1789, she was abruptly dismissed so that a political ally of the new postmaster general could take her job. The official reason given was that the role required more travel than a woman could handle. Outraged, over 230 Baltimore businessmen, including the Maryland governor, petitioned for her reinstatement. Goddard herself wrote directly to President George Washington, protesting the “extraordinary Act of oppression” (13). Washington dismissed her plea, and she never regained her position, but her name remains as a permanent mark on the Goddard Broadside.

Phillis Wheatley, who became the first published African American poet, used her literary genius to challenge the hypocrisy of the American Revolution. Born in Senegambia (part of modern-day Senegal and Gambia), she was kidnapped as a child and brought to Boston on a ship transporting enslaved people in 1761. After being purchased by the Wheatley family, she displayed a remarkable intellect and was tutored by the Wheatleys’ daughter Mary, quickly mastering English and Latin. Her poetry, which she began writing as a young teen, gained widespread acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic.

In her work, Wheatley drew parallels between her personal experience of being enslaved and the American colonies’ struggle for freedom from British tyranny. She became a “Poet Laureate of the American Revolution” (19), and her verse engaged directly with revolutionary leaders. In 1775, she sent a patriotic poem to General George Washington, who praised her talents and invited her to his headquarters. While celebrated by some founders, she was dismissed by others, most notably the enslaver Thomas Jefferson. Despite facing immense adversity, Wheatley’s poetry served as an important voice demanding that the new nation’s ideals of liberty and equality be extended to all people.

Mercy Otis Warren was the leading female intellectual of the American Revolution, using her pen to shape patriot ideology at a time when women were excluded from political life. From her home in Plymouth, Massachusetts, which served as a meeting place for radicals like John Adams, she initially wrote popular satirical plays, poems, and pamphlets under a pseudonym that attacked British rule and loyalists, before publishing under her own name from 1790 onward. Her husband, James Warren, and her brother, patriot leader James Otis Jr., supported her “unfeminine” political interests. While she didn’t campaign for further legal rights for women, instead viewing motherhood as an opportunity for women to teach sons how to become future leaders, she nonetheless asserted her own place in politics.

A staunch anti-federalist, Warren feared that the new US Constitution centralized too much power and failed to protect individual liberties. In 1788, she anonymously published a highly influential pamphlet, “Observations on the New Constitution,” which argued against ratification without a Bill of Rights. Her arguments helped create the momentum that led to the adoption of the first 10 amendments. In 1805, she published a three-volume history of the Revolution under her own name. Her candid criticism of Adams in the work as having a “partiality for monarchy” caused a major rift in their long friendship, prompting his dismissive claim that history was “not the Province of the Ladies” (25). Warren never backed down, cementing her legacy as a principled defender of republican ideals.

In the mid-19th century, historian and author Elizabeth Ellet undertook the first major project to recover and record the lives of women who contributed to the American Revolution. Facing a deep historical neglect of women’s stories, Ellet traveled extensively, interviewing surviving women who had lived through the Revolution and, for those who had died, tracking down their descendants. The result was her original 1848 book, The Women of the American Revolution, which included figures like Emily Geiger, a now-memorialized woman from South Carolina who, at great risk, carried messages between commanders through British-controlled territories.

The book was a commercial and critical success, eventually expanding to three volumes and profiling over 160 women. Ellet’s work gave 19th-century readers a new perspective on the founding of the nation, as she wrote that she wanted to highlight the “patriotic mothers” who had “nursed the infancy of freedom” (32). By rescuing these stories from obscurity, she created a blueprint for the field of women’s history over a century before it was formally taught in universities. Though her work was pioneering, it reflected the prejudices of her era, as she didn’t include the stories of Black women. Despite her prolific career, Ellet’s own legacy was minimized; a public scandal involving Edgar Allan Poe often overshadows her intellectual contributions, and her New York Times obituary focused more on her father and her domesticity than on her original work.

Elizabeth Freeman, an enslaved woman in Massachusetts, secured her liberty by suing her enslaver, a case that led to the abolition of slavery in the state. Born with the name Bett, she was enslaved in the household of Colonel John Ashley. After Ashley’s wife, Pamela, tried to strike Freeman’s sister (though some historians say it was her daughter) with a large iron shovel hot from cleaning the oven, Freeman intervened and was left with a deep scar on her arm, which she refused to cover for the rest of her life as a reminder of the brutality she endured.

While serving in the Ashley home, Freeman overheard discussions about the 1773 Sheffield Resolves and the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which declared tenets of freedom, independence, and equality. Inspired by these words, she walked about five miles to the home of attorney Theodore Sedgwick and asked him to represent her in a lawsuit for her freedom. Sedgwick had been an enslaver at some point and had penned so-called “fugitive slave” laws that banned Northerners from aiding freedom seekers; however, he agreed to represent her and combined her case with that of a man named Brom, also enslaved by the Ashleys, as women had fewer rights and credibility in the legal system.

In the 1781 case of Brom and Bett v. Ashley, a jury ruled in her favor, affirming that slavery was incompatible with the state’s new constitution. After winning the case, she changed her name to Elizabeth Freeman as an act of self-determination. Her landmark legal victory set the precedent that effectively ended slavery in Massachusetts. Afterward, Freeman supported the Sedgwick family, as Pamela struggled with depression that left her unable to care for her children at times. Freeman had her own children, bought her own property, and later died successful and independent. Her story endured largely through an essay written by Catharine Sedgewick, Theodore’s daughter, though O’Donnell laments that Freeman could never offer her story in her own words.

Deborah Sampson defied all gender norms of her time by disguising herself as a man to fight in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Raised in poverty as an indentured servant, Sampson resiliently sought an independent path. After a first attempt to enlist failed when she was recognized, she traveled to another town and successfully joined the 4th Massachusetts Regiment in 1782 under the name “Robert Shurtleff.”

Sampson served for 17 months, participating in battle and suffering injuries. At Tarrytown, she was shot twice in the leg and wounded on the forehead. Fearing discovery, she allowed a doctor to treat her head wound but left the hospital before her thigh injury could be examined. Her identity was finally revealed when she fell ill in Philadelphia and a doctor discovered her secret while treating her. After receiving an honorable discharge, Sampson married and raised a family. She later became the first US woman to embark on a public speaking tour, recounting her wartime experiences. With the help of Paul Revere, she successfully petitioned for and received a military pension for her service.

Patience Lovell Wright was one of America’s first professional female sculptors, who used her artistic career as a cover for her work as a spy for the patriot cause during the American Revolution. After being widowed in 1769, Wright supported her children by creating remarkably lifelike wax portrait busts, an unusual profession for a woman at the time. Following a fire that destroyed her New York studio, she moved to London in 1772.

In London, her brash, provincial American style and artistic talent made her a sensation in high society. She gained access to the most powerful figures, including King George III and Queen Charlotte, whom she addressed with shocking familiarity. As political tensions escalated, Wright became a self-appointed spy, gathering intelligence on British military plans during her sculpting sessions with aristocrats and officials. She then embedded secret messages inside her wax figures and sent dispatches to the Continental Congress, with Benjamin Franklin among those receiving her intelligence, as Franklin’s sister had helped Wright gain favor in British high society. Though she was an invaluable patriot, she fell out of favor with the royals, and her requests to be rewarded for her service were denied. She died in London in 1786 without ever returning to the US.