The Other Daughters of the Revolution: the Narrative of K. White (1809) and the Memoirs of Elizabeth Fisher (1810)

Presents two of the earliest autobiographies of American women.

Early in the nineteenth century, New York residents K. White and Elizabeth Fisher wrote and published two of the earliest autobiographies written by American women. Their lives ran along parallel courses: both were daughters of Loyalists who chose to remain in the United States; both found themselves entangled in unhappy marriages, abandoned for extend periods, and forced to take on the role of sole provider; and both became involved in property disputes with their male kin, which eventually landed them in prison, where they wrote their narratives. White?s tale is a highly crafted text, almost an embryonic novel, incorporating several subgenres and interweaving poetry and prose. Fisher?s story, while less sophisticated in terms of rhetoric and style, is nevertheless a compelling account of a woman?s life and struggles during the Revolution and the early years of the republic.

Their narratives, read together, highlight many literary and historical issues. They present an unruly, disobedient, and assertive female subject and illuminate popular attitudes regarding women and marriage. By articulating a consistent and growing unease concerning the institution of marriage and the unlimited power husbands had over their wives, these narratives lay the groundwork for a political critique of marriage and the status of women within it.

?I find this a powerfully engaging and beautifully executed book. Sharon Halevi?s introduction offers a provocative thesis that it was pamphlet memoirs such as these, rather than fiction, that offered the first feminist critiques of domestic ideology in the early republic by giving voice to unruly female subjects.? ? Phyllis Cole, author of Mary Moody Emerson and the Origins of Transcendentalism: A Family History

?Taken together, these texts contribute to the contemporary reframing of an earlier feminist paradigm of separate spheres and propose one way to approach thorny issues of arguing from texts to lived experience.? ? Sidonie Smith, coauthor of Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives