Esteemed historian Cynthia A. Kierner, Ph.D., professor of history at George Mason University, will discuss her newest book, The Tory's Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America.
The Spurgin Family of North Carolina experienced the cataclysm of the American Revolution in the most dramatic ways and from different sides. This engrossing book tells the story of Jane Welborn Spurgin, a patriot who welcomed General Nathanael Greene to her home and aided Continental forces while her loyalist husband was fighting for the king as an officer in the Tory militia. By focusing on the wife of a middling backcountry farmer, Dr. Kierner shows how the Revolution not only toppled long-established political hierarchies but also strained family ties and drew women into the public sphere to claim citizenship and rights.
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