Lydia M. Olson Library
As part of its America 250 speaker series, the Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center is hosting a presentation by NMU history professor Emily Romeo, titled “Armed and Disguised: The Revolutionary Life of Deborah Sampson.” The event will take place on Thursday, March 19, at 7 p.m. in the Lydia Olson Library Atrium in Harden Hall on the campus of Northern Michigan University. It is free and open to the public.
It’s 1782 near Tarrytown, New York. A young patriot soldier, not yet even able to grow a beard, fights bravely before being shot in the thigh and slashed on the forehead in a heated battle with local Tories. While the other wounded seek out medical attention, this soldier digs the musket ball out themselves with a pen knife and a sewing needle. Why? After 17 months in the Continental Army, Robert Shurtliff was terrified that soon every member of the 4th Massachusetts would learn the secret beneath his breeches: this soldier was a woman.
Historians don’t have a clear answer about why Deborah Sampson decided to join the army and fight for the American cause. Perhaps poverty made the promise of a signing bounty irresistible - she was among the servant class at the time - or she had a genuine belief in the Revolution. Or possibly both. Regardless of why she signed up, Sampson earned the respect of her fellow soldiers and commanding officers, challenging gender norms along the way. After the war, she would learn to balance her multiple identities: as wife and mother, soldier and performer. Together, let’s explore the Revolutionary life of Deborah Sampson.
Dr. Emily Romeo, Associate Professor in NMU’s history department, received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where she began her research on the lives of women in seventeenth and early eighteenth-century America. Her book, The Virtuous and Violent Women of Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020), explores women’s expressions of violence in the context of the social, cultural, and religious upheavals of that period. Before coming to NMU, she taught history at DePaul University.
