Antebellum Women: Private, Public, Partisan explores how diverse women understood, and acted upon, their varied constraints and worldviews in American society from the Revolution through the Civil War. Combining a review of the vast scholarship on early nineteenth-century gender and women with an assemblage of intriguing primary documents, this volume outlines three phases in women's engagement in civic and political activities: first as "deferential domestics," then as "companionate co-workers," and finally as "passionate partisans." The book includes a selection of primary documents.