Reviewed by Catherine Allgor | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 66.1

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Reviewed by Catherine Allgor | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 66.1 | The History Cooperative

Reviews of Books

Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic. By Rosemarie Zagarri. Early American Studies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. 241 pages. $39.95 (cloth).
Reviewed by Catherine Allgor, Claremont McKenna College
"Pathbreaking" is an appellation reserved for few books; "field-changing" is an even rarer designation. Nonetheless Rosemarie Zagarri's Revolutionary Backlash deserves both. She transforms both the field of women's history and the standard political narrative that still dominates United States history. Admirers of Zagarri's previous work will be pleased to see how ideas that she pioneered have evolved, burnished as finely as her precise prose. Zagarri was trained as a political historian, and her tightly woven thesis and arguments, as well as her use of evidence, reflect her pedigree. In an introduction, five chapters, and an epilogue, Revolutionary Backlash tackles the problems of rights, citizenship, and political participation from the Revolution to the mid-nineteenth century.	1
The standard narrative, based on the work of Linda K. Kerber and Mary Beth Norton, is that, though women were personally politicized by the Revolutionary War, neither the war nor the new Constitution changed their status. If the question is, à la Joan Kelly-Gadol's famous question about women and the Renaissance, "Was there a revolution for women?" the answer would be "no."¹ Except for the odd historical moment, such as the thirty years women voted in New Jersey, the march toward equal rights did not begin until the benevolence, reform, and abolition movements of the 1830s and 1840s, which led to the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and the start of the decades-long suffrage battle. The main thrust of this narrative is progressive, with women moving forward with each passing era. By contrast Zagarri argues that the politicization of women continued after the Revolution and that white women both took full advantage of the political opportunities offered them and created others. By this reckoning, the New Jersey female voters were not an anomaly but part of an overall pattern.	2
In her discussion of the postrevolutionary period and women's political activities, Zagarri refines an important analytic model: the "female politician." People of the time used the term "politician" to describe not an officeholder but simply someone versed in politics. Zagarri defines the female politician as a woman who was white and either elite or aspiring to be elite and who played politics or participated in the political discussions of the day. This group included writers and theoreticians but more often the female members of political families. This formulation allows us to understand famous women, such as First Lady Dolley Madison, not as exceptions but as part of an emerging class of political actors. These independent, visible women symbolized both women's new prospects and the dangers of female politicking.	3
Women eagerly seized new opportunities afforded by the development of the party system, supporting "their" parties in traditional ways: attending speeches, marching in parades, and hosting social events. In the beginning men responded positively, courting their female kin as symbols of disinterested patriotism and even using female tropes to express and refine their party's ideas. But partisanship escalated and, though historians have long discussed the high pitch of these battles, Zagarri freshly and persuasively demonstrates how bitter partisanship threatened the fragile political and social bonds of the Republic. Women, especially female politicians, were attacked for their roles in the conflict. In a milieu where men discussed politics in religious terms, as good versus evil, all women must be peacemakers—nonpartisan patriots. Zagarri illustrates this change with a fascinating analysis, contrasting the almost-nonexistent public role of women during the Panic of 1819 with their activities in previous national crises, such as the War of 1812. Women's historians have long speculated about the relationship between the rise of the cult of domesticity and a time when the public sphere was offering more opportunities for men and perhaps women, but Zagarri now traces a clear connection. Before capitalism wanted women to be angels of the hearth, politics demanded it.	. . .

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