‘Revolution Up Close’ Public Lecture Series | The Tory’s Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America

The Spurgin family of North Carolina experienced the cataclysm of the American Revolution in the most dramatic ways—and from different sides. This engrossing book tells the story of Jane Welborn Spurgin, a patriot who welcomed General Nathanael Greene to her home and aided Continental forces while her loyalist husband was fighting for the king as an officer in the Tory militia. By focusing on the wife of a middling backcountry farmer, esteemed historian Cynthia Kierner shows how the Revolution not only toppled long-established political hierarchies but also strained family ties and drew women into the public sphere to claim both citizenship and rights—as Jane Spurgin did with a dramatic series of petitions to the North Carolina state legislature when she fought to reclaim her family’s lost property after the war was over.

While providing readers with stories of battles, horse-stealing, bigamy, and exile that bring the Revolutionary era vividly to life, this book also serves as an invaluable examination of the potentially transformative effects of war and revolution, both personally and politically.

Author

Cynthia A. Kierner is Professor of History at George Mason University and the author of Scandal at Bizarre: Rumor and Reputation in Jefferson’s America.

Revolution Up Close: A Public Lecture Series

This lecture series is presented in connection with Nursery of Rebellion: Princeton and the American Revolution, an exhibit at the Princeton University Library which runs from April 15 to July 12, 2026. Four recent authors offer new perspectives on the American Revolution by zooming in on an individual life, a close-knit community, or a single document.

Free and open to all
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Supported by a Special Grant from the Humanities Council’s Ruth and Sid Lapidus ’59 Research Fellowships Fund