The Effects of the American Revolution on American Social Life

The majority of historiography and literature regarding the American Revolution has a heavy focus on political or economic aspects of the war. Most often, historians points to factors such as taxation, the Enlightenment, or broader threats to absolute monarchy that affected European empires in the late eighteenth century. Analyses of the effects of the revolution, as well, tend to focus on new trade routes, political precedents, and the emergence of the United States as a new power on the world stage. When social impacts are discussed, they are frequently skimmed over as historians attempt to ensure readers that the American Revolution did indeed alter the social landscape of the young country as they so often claim it did politically or economically. However, this paper seeks to examine social impacts of the revolution, especially in terms of Loyalist men and Patriot women, in further detail to determine whether any social change occurred. This paper also intends to investigate what motivated any new trends in order to more fully understand if social change brought on by the American Revolution is just as dramatic as often assumed. The majority of this paper analyzes primary source documents regarding Loyalists and Patriot women written before, during, and after the revolution to examine social change and social treatment. Most of these documents offer a colonial and early American citizen perspective, while a few explore broader points of view to derive further meaning and understanding regarding American treatment of these two groups. The purpose of this paper is to expand the current historiography on the American Revolution in order to more fully understand the changes, or lack thereof, that occurred in early America and the resulting social atmosphere for Loyalists and Patriot women.