American Revolution

After the American Revolution, the people of America needed to establish their own politics, economy and society, because of their new independence from Britain. America had been under British rule since the foundation of Jamestown in 1607, but had felt that they needed freedom from Britain's rule after a series of events that left them feeling as though they were thought of as inferior to Britain and were used mainly as a source of money and goods. America's desire of freedom lead to the American Revolution in which America won their independence and was its own country. After the revolution the people of America were in need of a new government, economy, and society. Politically, Americans wanted to be as far from the way Britain governed itself as possible, which lead to the establishment of a more centralized government. Socially, women, slaves and loyalists experienced the most change in the society, although others did as well. Economically America did not change much accept for the creation of a unified currency throughout the country. Overall, after the revolution America didn't experience a lot of economic change, but it did experience a fairly large social and political change.

When first declaring independence from Britain, the people of America did not want a government that resembled Britain's after all the hardship they went through due to an overly powerful central government. With this in mind the people adopted the articles of confederation, which did not have a national executive branch. However, after some time of following the articles of confederation the people of the government realized that there would be a need for a more centralized government. As the constitution was written and waiting to be approved by all of the states, the federalist papers were also written in which James Madison writes "You must first enable the government to control the governed: and in the next place oblige it to control itself." (Document I) which was a concern of some people that the government would not be able to control itself. The constitution, which was finally ratified by all states, resembled Britain's government in some ways, but was still much less powerful.

Socially, varying degrees of change took place throughout the American society. During the revolution it looked as though women may experience an expansion of rights seeing as they were participating in the revolution and expanding their roles in everyday life. In a woodcut of a patriot woman, a woman is shown carrying a gunpowder horn and a rifle (Document A), representing the more significant roles women played in society during the revolution. Even though an addition to women's rights seemed promising, it did not occur. This left some