Women's History Month

Explore the Museum's When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story, 1776-1807 online exhibit to learn the little-known history of the nation’s first women voters.

Explore nine poll lists featuring 163 women voters who cast ballots across New Jersey from 1800 to 1807. The poll lists suggest women’s political significance and participation in local, state, and federal elections in early New Jersey.

View a 25-minute film of a one-woman theatrical performance based on the life of Elizabeth Freeman (also known as "Mumbet"), a woman who sued for her freedom from enslavement and won.

View a 25-minute film of a one-woman theatrical performance based on the life of Rebecca VanDike, an early woman voter in New Jersey.

Explore the Museum's Finding Freedom online interactive, which examines the stories Eve and Deborah as well as additional people of African descent in Virginia who followed different paths to freedom during the Revolutionary War. Their stories are also available to explore in the Museum via a touchscreen kiosk.

This eyewitness sketch, drawn by Pierre Eugène du Simitiére (1737-1784) shows soldiers and camp followers of the Continental Army’s North Carolina Brigade marching through Philadelphia on Aug. 25, 1777, on their way to join the rest of General George Washington’s army stationed south of Philadelphia. These troops would go on to fight at the battles of Brandywine (Sept. 11, 1777) and Germantown (Oct. 4, 1777). The inclusion of two female camp followers, including one holding an infant, shown riding in a wagon exemplifies a direct defiance of known regulations at the time about how women following the army could use wagons.

Explore other personal, often-unfamiliar stories of women during the Revolutionary era and the roles they played in the war effort. Learn about Deborah Squash, who ran away from Mount Vernon and sought protection with the British Army; Tyonajanegen (Two Kettles Together), an Oneida woman who played a key role in their nation’s decision to ally themselves with the American Revolutionaries and participated in the violent Battle of Oriskany during the Saratoga Campaign; Baroness Frederika von Riedesel, who recorded her journey and war-time experiences on the Saratoga campaign and as a prisoner-of-war in a detailed personal journal; and more.

Learn more about Selina Gray, an enslaved woman at Arlington House, the home of Martha Washington's granddaughter Mary Custis Lee and Confederate General Robert E. Lee who saved Washington family heirlooms, including George Washington's Revolutionary War tent, from possible destruction by the occupying Union army during the Civil War.