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A Read the Revolution graphic features images of book covers for Liberty's Daughters and 1774 alongside author Mary Beth Norton's headshot.
The Ladies of America have been divers times addressed as persons of consequence in the present oeconomical regulations [...]
Aspatia, Belinda, Corinna [3 pseudonymous Boston women], Jan. 9, 1768

Author and historian Dr. Mary Beth Norton joins the Museum for a special presentation titled, “Gender and American Resistance to British Authority, 1765-1775: A Reassessment,” as part of the Museum's Read the Revolution Speaker Series. Drawing on her award-winning books, 1774: The Long Year of Revolution and Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800, Norton will reflect on the advances in scholarship on gender and the Revolution that have appeared since Liberty’s Daughters was first published in 1980, based on her own additional research and that of other historians. She will deal with questions about men’s and women’s involvement in pre-revolutionary politics in the context of contemporary definitions of masculinity and femininity.

The program will be held in the Museum’s Liberty Hall and will be broadcast live via Zoom. Following the presentation, Museum President & CEO Dr. R. Scott Stephenson will join the conversation to facilitate a live Q&A with the onsite and online audiences.

Doors open at 6 p.m. for onsite guests to see a featured artifact from the Museum collection, enjoy refreshments at a cash bar, and have opportunities to purchase signed copies of the featured books.

About Dr. Mary Beth Norton

Headshot image of author and historian Mary Beth Norton.

Mary Beth Norton is the Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History Emerita at Cornell University, where she taught from 1971 to 2018. In 2005-6, she was Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge. She has written six books about Early American history, including Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800; and In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692.  She was an author, with others, of A People and A Nation, which appeared in its 11th edition in 2018, one of the leading U.S. history textbooks since its initial publication in 1982. Her most recent work is 1774: The Long Year of Revolution (2020), which won the 2021 George Washington Prize as the best book on the revolutionary era. She has been elected a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. She was president of the 12,000-member American Historical Association in 2018. 

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Read the Revolution Speaker Series with Vincent Brown
 

Read the Revolution Speaker Series

The Read the Revolution Speaker Series brings celebrated authors and historians to the Museum for lively, facilitated discussions of their work.
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Image 010721 16x9 Transparent Rtr186 1774 Long Year Revolution Norton Cover
 

1774: The Long Year of Revolution

Read an excerpt from Mary Beth Norton's book, 1774: The Long Year of Revolution.
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The image shows the book cover of Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 by Mary Beth Norton. It is a blue cover with Mary’s name written in red font at the top of the image. The title of the book is written in white font in the middle of the image.
 

Liberty's Daughters

Read an excerpt from Mary Beth Norton's book, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800.
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