Last updated: December 18, 2018
Lesson Plan
Unsung Patriots: Women at the Battle of Cowpens
- Grade Level:
- Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade
- Subject:
- Literacy and Language Arts,Social Studies
- Lesson Duration:
- 60 Minutes
- State Standards:
- NATIONAL/STATE STANDARDS:
South Carolina:
Social Studies: 8.1.1, 8.2.6, 8.8.1, 8.7.7
Language Arts: Grade 8-I-F, H, L, N; IV-B, J
Visual Arts - Components 1-3
Drama: Components 1-3 - Thinking Skills:
- Remembering: Recalling or recognizing information ideas, and principles. Understanding: Understand the main idea of material heard, viewed, or read. Interpret or summarize the ideas in own words. Applying: Apply an abstract idea in a concrete situation to solve a problem or relate it to a prior experience. Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts.
Essential Question
What important role did women have in the Battle of Cowpens?
Objective
The student will be able to identify the varied roles of women in the American Revolution.
The student will be able to explain this role in the context of the position of women in colonial society.
The student will identify women associated with the battle of Cowpens in the context of documented activities of women in South Carolina and all of colonial America.
Background
GOAL: To present to students the contribution of women to the Battle of Cowpens in context of women’s role in the Revolution in the Carolinas and colony-wide.
Women made important contributions to the American Revolution. Stories abound of heroines and others associated with the events of war. Many were camp followers following their husbands, sons, and fathers as they fought. They cooked, sewed, and nursed the wounded, served as messengers and spies, and sometimes fought in battle. Often we are aware of such persons as Molly Pitcher and Sybil Ludington (the female Paul Revere), but there were other lesser-known and sometimes unnamed women who are of equal importance. A number of women are known for their involvement in the Revolutionary War in South Carolina.
Many stories of Revolutionary War heroines are blends of fact and fiction. Good researchers document their findings.
Other than those heroines connected to battles, there were those women on the home-front who took on the sole obligations of managing home and family. It is interesting to note those roles taken by various Native-American, African-American, Patriot, and Loyalist women.
Preparation
Review Background Information and Procedure sections.
Procedure
PRE-SITE ACTIVITIES Complete the following activities using the list of heroines and other women associated with the Revolution below.
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IDENTIFY SOME WOMEN OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION |
1. ___Catherine Moore Barry
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POST-SITE ACTIVITIES
MARY PATTON Erected by her descendants, 1932 |
Additional Resources
Blumenthal, Walter Hart. Women Camp Followers of the American Revolution. Philadelphia: George S. MacManus Company, 1952.
Buel, Joy Day and Richard Buel, Jr. The Way of Duty: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1995.
De Pauw, Linda Grant. Founding Mothers: Women of America in the Revolutionary Era. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975.
Huff, Archie Vernon, Jr. “Jane Thomas and Dicey Langston Springfield” in Greenville: The History of the City and County in the South Carolina Piedmont. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995. pp. 28-29.
Kierner, Cynthia A. Southern Women in Revolution, 1776- 1800: Personal and Political Narratives. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.