A thriving commercial and cultural hub in the revolutionary era, New York City functioned as the British army’s North American headquarters for the majority of the American Revolution as well as the first capital of the United States. The experience of daily life in revolutionary-era New York therefore offers a unique perspective on the war and the nation that emerged from it.

Throughout the imperial crisis, and later, as war descended upon the city, New Yorkers experienced novel, often disorienting and frequently violent changes to their daily lives. Prewar boycotts and food shortages introduced new pressures into daily life. Once the war was underway, armies brought diseases and increased the potential for violence. In occupied New York, British troops and their families intermingled with civilian inhabitants, including New Yorkers of various statuses, races, and political affiliations, loyalist refugees from throughout the colonies, and enslaved freedom-seekers. Within the occupied city, property destruction and theft were rampant. Quartered troops disrupted the routines civilian households. Yet, amid this disruption, life went on. Families adapted to wartime constraints, adjusting their budgets and modifying their strategies of financial management. Businesses and labor markets rebounded. Neighbors looked out for one another.

But in addition to the perils of garrison life, it also introduced new possibilities, especially for women. Enslaved women flooded British garrisons in search of freedom for themselves and their kin. As the favored social companions of British officers, young elite white women wielded enhanced levels of social power within the garrison. Other elite women, benefiting from the privileges of from their status, whiteness, and familial ties, harnessed kinship-driven commercial networks to maintain financial security, and even profit, throughout the revolutionary period. And as diseases ran rampant, both during the war and into the yellow fever epidemics that occurred in the early years of the republic, many poor women found financial security in their work as nurses, and continued to benefit from visibility and respect these labors earned them. The opportunities and consequences of the war years continued to resonate far beyond the conflict and into the early years of the nation.

Throughout the revolutionary era, women—Black and white, free and enslaved, loyalists, revolutionaries, and disaffected—were integral to daily life in New York City. Their experiences illustrate the daily, quotidian experience of the American Revolution and the revolutionary era and demonstrate both the opportunities and the consequences that it introduced into people’s lives. Exploring diverse women’s experiences, this roundtable will explore how centering these perspectives sheds new light on revolutionary and founding-era New York City in ways that illustrate the centrality of gender to this period and this place.