About The Ladies were Daughters Too
The owner of a run-down landmark made it clear in news articles, more than once, that he would not sell to the Ladies. Then, after five years of declaring NO, he sold the one-time residence of the Father of our Country to the Ladies anyway. Critics of the day saw nothing but gloom and doom, still, the 19th century Ladies not only paid off the debt – they did so early. Mount Vernon, a historic treasure today, survived the ages thanks to a Society of patriotic women of yesteryear.
Separate of the Ladies, when the Sons of veterans of America’s Revolution formed an all-male Society in 1889, another band of women - proud Daughters of the American Revolution – formed a Society of their own a year later.
American women did not vote in the 19th century. They did not hold political office, and rarely were they found in the business world. If married, her identity was traditionally her husband’s – but with the prefix “Mrs.”
Much has been written of this dark side of the 1800s, a time that gave birth to the suffrage movement, but not enough has been said about the positive influencers of that era – women who, arguably, did far more to commence righting the wrongs of yesteryear.
The Ladies were Daughters too, and together, these 19th century women Extraordinaires re-defined American Patriotism.