STAND BY YOUR MAN: Known as camp followers, women — many accompanying their husbands — played an integral part in the American Revolution. Laundry was among their many tasks, as historian Samantha Allison will detail in her June 10 lecture on Zoom.
By Anne Levin
Most accounts of the American Revolutionary War tend to focus on battles and the soldiers who fought in them. Less common is information about the women who supported those men behind the scenes, tending to washing, mending, nursing, and other domestic duties.
These “camp followers” are the subject of a Zoom presentation planned for June 10 at 7:30 p.m. by historian Samantha Allison. Sponsored by the Stockton-based Delaware River Greenway Partnership (DRGP), the talk will illuminate the vital role these women played in performing the essential labor that sustained the Continental Army’s daily operations. Allison’s presentation will also explore how military authorities navigated the presence of female followers.
“Officers sought to balance the practical necessity of support services with the demands of discipline and logistics, revealing a complex relationship between those women and the army,” reads a release from the DRGP.
Allison, who is civilian programs coordinator at Washington Crossing Historic Park, was the on-camera historian for two episodes of the recent PBS series “Treasures of New Jersey,” and contributor to the new Valley Forge Visitor Center film produced for the National Park Service. Most recently, she contributed research and appeared on screen in Ken Burns’ 2025 series “The American Revolution,” focusing on the daily labor of camp followers.
“That ended up becoming so much bigger than I was expecting,” she said about the Ken Burns series. “We shot the scene in 2023, and it turned out to be his favorite. They blew it up, and the next thing I knew, there was this snowball effect.”
The daughter of a Bicentennial reenactor and history teacher, Allison grew up surrounded by history. At first, she wasn’t interested in following in her father’s footsteps. But after the difficult labor she experienced while delivering her first child, she picked up a book about the history of childbirth practicing. She read a section about the 18th century that led to information about the camp followers.
“My interest was piqued,” she said. “Nobody had done anything on it, so I decided to do it on my own.”
The more Allison learned from military records and pension applications, the more she was amazed by the dynamic between the managing officers and the women. “Typically, when women are mentioned at all in these military papers, it’s because they’re being yelled at,” she said. “Even from the viewpoint of these upper officers, you can tell that status is at play. Because these are low class women who are there for basic survival. You can tell they’re viewed very subserviently.”
Allison was interested to learn that the women did everything except cook. “They were laundresses and nurses. They cleaned camps, they made cartridges,” she said. “They were very involved in the overall health and function of the army itself, but they weren’t considered part of the army.”
Through her research, Allison has learned how the women’s contributions were woven into the fabric of military administration. “The way it worked was that the military kind of halted the war for six months in winter,” she said. “They would erect these encampments and you’d find these vast communities with women and children. The soldiers usually had civilian occupations. A lot of them were bakers, blacksmiths, that sort of thing.”
During the six months the men were away at war, “the women were ordered to be segregated away from the main army and attached to the ‘baggage wagon,’ which is where the ‘baggage’ term comes from,” Allison said. “These were for regimental use — slow moving. And that’s where the women traveled.”
Allison goes out of her way to make her presentations lively. “I’m not a presenter who is mono-chromatic,” she said. “I’m a theater kid, so I’m super animated. I like to tell a story. I like to make the audience laugh and think. I try to create an immersive experience that touches on a lot of aspects of these women’s lives.”
What has drawn Allison to the stories of these women is their relatability. “We’re talking about women who came from a diverse range of immigration statuses,” she said. “They were lower class, what we called ‘blue-collared.’ They smoked, they drank, they cursed. They did what they could for survival. They just wanted to be with their families. They are so, so relatable. I love all of their stories.”
She has had mentors along the way. “Research is a collective enterprise, and it is ongoing,” Allison said. “I’ve been so fortunate to share in this research with other amazing historians, and together we’ve been able to put the puzzle pieces together.”
To register for the talk, visit tinyurl.com/ythd6bpm.