Women in colonial America were legally invisible. Married women could not own property, vote, serve on juries, or speak publicly on politics. Yet the American Revolution was a watershed, inviting women into political life as boycotters, writers, and even voters. What opened that window, and why did it close so abruptly? In this episode of This Constitution, Savannah Eccles Johnston sits down with Rosemarie Zagarri, distinguished university professor of history at George Mason University and author of Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic. Together they trace women's political engagement from the colonial period through the Revolution, the 1790s, and the backlash that followed, and how it all foreshadowed 1848. They begin with the legal and social position of women before 1776, when politics was understood as an exclusively male realm. The conversation turns to how the Revolution's bottom-up resistance movement, including tax protests, boycotts, and the Daughters of Liberty, pulled women in for practical reasons: they were the chief purchasers of British goods. Zagarri explains how women like Mercy Otis Warren and Phillis Wheatley moved from private sentiment to public political authorship, and how Abigail Adams's "Remember the Ladies" captured the unintended consequences of revolutionary rhetoric. The episode explores New Jersey's 1776 constitution, whose gender-neutral language allowed unmarried women and widows with property to vote. Zagarri details how the rise of political parties in the 1790s led both Federalists and Democratic-Republicans to court female supporters, and how the 1807 New Jersey legislature disenfranchised women and free Blacks amid fraud accusations. The backlash, she argues, was reinforced by new "scientific" claims about bodily difference and the ideology of separate spheres. The conversation closes with republican motherhood, women's continued reform work, and the long road to Seneca Falls. Tune in to discover how the Revolution opened a window for women's political participation, and why that window, though forced shut, never fully closed. In This Episode [00:07] Meet Rosemarie Zagarri[47] Women before the Revolution: legally invisible[03:13] How the Revolution activated women as political actors[10:20] Women's ideological involvement: Mercy Otis Warren and Phillis Wheatley[14:12] Did revolutionary ideology open the door to challenges against male authority?[16:12] Unintended consequences and New Jersey's gender-neutral constitution[19:16] The 1790s: parties court women as political participants[23:51] The backlash and the 1807 disenfranchisement in New Jersey[24:39] Voter fraud accusations and the story of women's removal from the polls[28:13] Science, separate spheres, and the justification of male hierarchy[37:11] Republican motherhood: step forward or sophisticated exclusion?[38:40] Education, reform movements, and the road to 1848[42:15] Why this forgotten story matters Notable Quotes (00:59) "The American Revolution was a watershed for women and their engagement with politics." — Rosemarie Zagarri(04:45) "Male political leaders quickly understood that they would have to invite people into this political process that couldn't vote, and that meant lower-class white men. And it also meant women." — Rosemarie Zagarri(14:16) "It was one of the unintended consequences of the revolutionary rhetoric... that women started to see themselves as political participants, as political actors." — Rosemarie Zagarri(22:17) "Even if they didn't want women to vote, they would like women on their side." — Rosemarie Zagarri on the first political parties(26:14) "Men were dressing up like women to cast their ballots... It was the easiest target to attack." — Rosemarie Zagarri on the 1807 New Jersey election(30:23) "There grew up this literature sanctioned by science which actually started to claim that the differences between men and women... were located in their bodies." — Rosemarie Zagarri(37:45) "By acknowledging at all that women had some kind of political contribution to make, I think it really did lay the groundwork for the later expansion of women's roles and rights." — Rosemarie Zagarri on republican motherhood(42:24) "Progress, that is the expansion of women's roles and rights, the possibility of women gaining equality with men, did not happen all at once in a straight line. It happened in fits and starts." — Rosemarie ZagarriResources and Links This Constitution Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-constitution/id1771900485Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0IQCq5DUPWlImiAdc4t3pf?si=85085b24b55b4130Website: https://www.uvu.edu/ccs/projects/this_constitution_podcast.htmlYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@centerforconstitutionalstu8915/videosRosemarie Zagarri https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosemarie-zagarri-gmu-19039918https://historyarthistory.gmu.edu/people/rzagarriRevolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic Savannah Eccles Johnston https://www.linkedin.com/in/savannah-eccles-johnston-515a72198https://www.uvu.edu/ccs/people/savannah_eccles_johnston.html
