Wife of John Adams, second president of the United States, Abigail
Adams was among the most remarkable women of the Revolutionary period. She shared the interest of her husband in the political
disputes that were to happen in war. Later, when Mr. Adams became President, it is said she had a lot of influence over her husband

Born a slave, Catherine Ferguson was eight years old when her mother was sold. She never saw her mother again. She cared a lot about displaced children and took in 48 children off the streets and either raised them or found good parents for them. She started the first Sunday School in New York City, gathering both black and white children for religious instruction every Sunday.

Dolly Madison was a granddaughter of John Payne, an English gentleman who migrated to Virginia early in the 18th century. After her first husband Philadelphia lawyer John Todd died in the yellow-fever epidemic of 1793, she was introduced to and eventually married James Madison who was then Secretary of State. Dolly served as unofficial first lady to President Thomas Jefferson, who was a widower. Later, she became the official First Lady as the wife of President Madison. Her enormous popularity as a hostess is credited with Madison's re-election to a second term. During the burning of the White House by the British in 1814, she removed the portrait of George Washington from the house, saving it from the fire.

During the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778 the fighting was fierce. The soldiers' throats were dry. Many were exhausted and wounded. All through the day a private's young wife, Mrs. John Hays, carried water in a pitcher back and forth from a well to her husband and his fellow artillery gunners. Thus, the nickname Molly Pitcher. As the battle went on, Molly's husband was shot dead, but she knew his job well enough to grab a rammer and keep the gun firing. She served at the cannon for the remainder of the battle.

Operating an upholsterer's shop in Philadelphia, Betsy Ross is credited with making the first stars-and-stripes flag. She did so at the request of George Washington, Robert Morris and George Ross. The stars-and-stripes was adopted as the national flag by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777.

One of the most educated and brilliant women of her time, Mercy Warren was close friends with Thomas Jefferson, John and Abigail Adams, James Winthrop and Elbridge Gerry. Wife of Revolutionary War leader James Warren, she wrote a number of political plays. Her three-volume "History of the American Revolution" published in 1805 is valuable because of her first-hand knowledge of many of the key personalities of the war.

When she was seventeen years old, Martha Dandridge married Daniel Parke Custis, one of the wealthiest planters of eastern Virginia. Eight years later her husband died, leaving her with two children. It was said she was "the prettiest and richest widow in Virginia". She met Colonel George Washington in 1758. They were married a year later. They made Mount Vernon their home where Martha managed her husband's plantations in his absence. During the war she visited him in camp. She became the "first" First Lady.

Phillis Wheatley was America's first black poet. Born in Senegal, Africa in 1753, she was kidnapped on a slave ship to Boston and sold at the age of seven to John and Susannah Wheatley of Boston as Mrs. Wheatley's personal servant. Phillis, however, was soon accepted as a member of the family, and was raised and educated with the Wheatley's other two children. Phillis soon displayed her remarkable talents by learning to read and write English. At the age of twelve she was reading the Greek and Latin classics, and passages from the Bible. At thirteen she wrote her first poem. Phillis became a Boston sensation after she wrote a poem on the death of the evangelical preacher George Whitefield in 1770. Three years later thirty-nine of her poems were published in London as "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral." It was the first book published by a black American.