{"id":285400,"date":"2025-06-10T08:39:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T08:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-june-10-2025-revolutionary-war-figures-molly-pitcher\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T08:39:56","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T08:39:56","slug":"americanstudies-june-10-2025-revolutionary-war-figures-molly-pitcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=285400","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: June 10, 2025: Revolutionary War Figures: Molly Pitcher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body-3468386681426903112\" itemprop=\"description articleBody\">\n<p>[On <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/classroom-materials\/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline\/american-revolution-1763-1783\/creating-a-continental-army\/\">June<br \/>\n14<sup>th<\/sup>, 1775<\/a>, the Continental Army was formed at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/inde\/learn\/historyculture\/resources-declaration-secondcontinentalcongress.htm\">Second<br \/>\nContinental Congress<\/a> in Philadelphia. So for the 250<sup>th<\/sup> of that momentous<br \/>\nmilitary moment, I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a handful of iconic Revolutionary War<br \/>\nfigures, leading up to a special weekend post on that historic anniversary!]<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 106.5pt;\">On the iconic<br \/>\nwar hero who might or might not have existed, and why she matters in any case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 106.5pt;\">I can think of<br \/>\nfew more AmericanStudies ways to analyze popular memory and prominence than<br \/>\nthrough <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eater.com\/2017\/6\/13\/15783216\/best-new-jersey-turnpike-rest-stop-service-plaza\">the<br \/>\ntwelve rest stops on the New Jersey turnpike<\/a>\u2014and by that measure, Molly<br \/>\nPitcher and <a href=\"http:\/\/americanstudier.blogspot.com\/2011\/02\/february-12-2011-guest-post-3-irenes.html\">Clara<br \/>\nBarton<\/a> are the two most famous women in New Jersey history and culture (if<br \/>\nthat last phrase isn\u2019t an oxymoron\u2014I kid, Jerseyites, I kid). Pitcher\u2019s is also<br \/>\nthe only one of the twelve rest stop referents that wasn\u2019t an actual name, and<br \/>\nthat might not even link to an individual figure\u2014some historians believe that<br \/>\nthe name does refer to one woman, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ushistory.org\/valleyforge\/youasked\/070.htm\">Mary Ludwig Hays<\/a>,<br \/>\nwho followed her husband and the Continental Army to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.state.nj.us\/dep\/parksandforests\/parks\/monbat.html\">the Battle<br \/>\nof Monmouth<\/a> and found herself not only serving water to the soldiers but<br \/>\neven <a href=\"https:\/\/www.womenshistory.org\/education-resources\/biographies\/mary-ludwig-hays\">taking<br \/>\nover her wounded husband\u2019s artillery job<\/a>; but others have linked the name<br \/>\nto a number of other Revolutionary-era women who performed one or another of<br \/>\nthose roles (camp followers, water carriers, and so on), <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikisource.org\/wiki\/Appletons%27_Cyclop%C3%A6dia_of_American_Biography\/Molly,_Captain\">including<br \/>\nMargaret Corbin<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 106.5pt;\">So Molly Pitcher<br \/>\nis as much a folkloric as a historical figure, one not unlike Paul Bunyan, John<br \/>\nHenry, or, perhaps more accurately, Central Massachusetts\u2019s own local legend <a href=\"http:\/\/americanstudier.blogspot.com\/2013\/07\/july-20-21-2013-william-kerrigans-guest.html\">Johnny<br \/>\nAppleseed<\/a>. Because like Appleseed\u2019s inspiration John Chapman (about whom<br \/>\nsee that hyperlinked, wonderful Guest Post by William Kerrigan), women like<br \/>\nHays and Corbin most definitely existed; the details of their lives and<br \/>\nexperiences are as partial and uncertain as most any 18<sup>th<\/sup> century<br \/>\nhistories, even those of <a href=\"http:\/\/americanstudier.blogspot.com\/2014\/07\/july-4-2014-americanmythbusters-george.html\">the<br \/>\nRevolution\u2019s most prominent leaders<\/a>, but there\u2019s plenty of information out<br \/>\nthere, such as at the various stories linked in my first paragraph\u2019s closing<br \/>\nsentences, and the Molly Pitcher legend provides an excellent starting point<br \/>\nfor researching and learning about these historical figures. Even absent such<br \/>\nresearch, any collective memory of \u201cMolly Pitcher\u201d itself adds women to our<br \/>\nnarratives of these Revolutionary war battles and histories, producing a more<br \/>\nfull and accurate picture of those histories as a result.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 142.5pt;\">I\u2019d take that<br \/>\nargument one step further, however. I\u2019ve written on multiple occasions,<br \/>\nincluding in this <a href=\"http:\/\/americanstudier.blogspot.com\/2013\/09\/september-16-2013-gloucester-stories.html\">post<br \/>\non Judith Sargent Murray<\/a> and this <a href=\"http:\/\/americanstudier.blogspot.com\/2014\/07\/july-5-6-2014-americanmythbusters-4th.html\">one<br \/>\non John and Abigail Adams<\/a>, about the striking cultural, social, and<br \/>\npolitical voices and roles of <a href=\"https:\/\/werehistory.org\/revolutionary-women-writers\/\">Revolutionary-era<br \/>\nAmerican women<\/a> (including not only Murray and Adams but also <a href=\"http:\/\/americanstudier.blogspot.com\/2013\/02\/february-4-2013-remembering-wheatley.html\">Phillis<br \/>\nWheatley<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amrevmuseum.org\/virtualexhibits\/when-women-lost-the-vote-a-revolutionary-story\/pages\/annis-boudinot-stockton\">Annis<br \/>\nBoudinot Stockton<\/a>, and others). Indeed, it\u2019s fair to say that such women<br \/>\nhelp us to see the era\u2019s possibilities for gender and society as likewise<br \/>\nrevolutionary, and as foreshadowing and influencing <a href=\"http:\/\/americanstudier.blogspot.com\/2012\/02\/february-27-2012-1848.html\">the<br \/>\n19<sup>th<\/sup> century women\u2019s movement<\/a>. That some of these women,<br \/>\nincluding Adams and Stockton, achieved such success in relationship to their<br \/>\nhusbands\u2019 lives and work\u2014just as, that is, Hays and Corbin did in relationship<br \/>\nto their husband\u2019s wartime efforts\u2014reflects some of the era\u2019s limitations and<br \/>\nobstacles; limitations and obstacles that all these women, like Molly Pitcher,<br \/>\npushed well beyond.<span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 142.5pt;\"><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;\">Next Revolutionary<br \/>\nfigure tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 142.5pt;\"><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;\">Ben<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 142.5pt;\"><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;\">PS. What<br \/>\ndo you think? Rev War figures you\u2019d highlight?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[On June 14th, 1775, the Continental Army was formed at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. So for the 250th of that momentous military moment, I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a handful of iconic Revolutionary War figures, leading up to a special weekend post on that historic anniversary!] On the iconic war hero who might or might not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[13299,8132,6128,5906,98331,5702,3739],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-285400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","tag-americanstudies","tag-figures","tag-june","tag-molly","tag-pitcher","tag-revolutionary","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>AmericanStudies: June 10, 2025: Revolutionary War Figures: Molly Pitcher - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=285400\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AmericanStudies: June 10, 2025: Revolutionary War Figures: Molly Pitcher - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[On June 14th, 1775, the Continental Army was formed at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. 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