Revolutionary Tea Parties:
Tea in North Carolina and Women’s History
Jamie L. Brummitt
PhD Student, American religion, Duke University
Suffragettes with American flag, c. 1910-1915. General Rosalie Jones, Jessie Stubbs, and Colonel Ida Craft. From the LOC.
Celebrating Women’s History Month 2015
“Weaving the Stories of Women’s Lives.”
Protesting Tea, Protesting Tyranny
“Tea Parties” in Colonial America
“Americans throwing the Cargoes of the Tea Ships into the River, at Boston.” Engraving by W.D.
Cooper in The History of North America. London: E. Newberry, 1789. From the LOC.
“Tea Parties” in Colonial America
“The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor” on December 16, 1773
“Tea Parties” in Colonial America
• October 25, 1774: 51 white women gathered and
signed a pledge to boycott English tea.
• Penelope Barker, the wife of NC’s Treasurer, organized
a women’s protest against the British.
• Historians think Elizabeth King, a prominent member
of the community, hosted the protest in her home.
Penelope Barker (engraving). In “The Historic EdentonTea Party. Edenton, NC: DAR, 1898, frontispiece.
“Tea Parties” in Colonial America
• Protests and boycotts were not unusual by this time.
• Penelope organized this protest to support the non-importation
resolutions passed in August 1774 by the North Carolina Provincial
Congress and those passed by he First Continental Congress adopted in
Philadelphia on October 20, 1774.
• Why is the “The Edenton Tea Party” important?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Solidified the link between tea and protest in the American
imagination.
Added fueled to American’s call for no taxation with
representation.
Colonial women broke the tradition of drinking tea in the
afternoon. This supports an American woman’s identity and
patriotism.
The first political act carried out by a group of women in colonial
America.
The women sent a copy of the signed protest to England. It was
published in the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser.
“
As we cannot be indifferent on any occasion that appears nearly to affect the
peace and happiness of our country, and as it has been thought necessary, for
the public good, to enter into several particular resolves by a meeting of
members deputed from the whole Province, it is a duty which we owe, not only
to our near and dear connections, who have concurred in them, but to
ourselves, who are essentially interested in their welfare, to do everything as far
as lies in our power, to testify our sincere adherence to the same; and we do
therefore accordingly subscribe this paper, as a witness of our fixed intention
and solemn determination to do so.
”
- The Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, January 1775
“Tea Parties” in Colonial America
• Other Responses from London:
•
“A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North
Carolina.” Mezzotint by Philip Dowes. London,
March 25, 1775. From the LOC.
•
Shows women in NC in a parlor having an afternoon
tea party with men.
•
If we look closely, we can see how this cartoon
satirizes colonial American women.
Remembering the American Revolution
The Boston Tea Party in Nineteenth-Century America (1800s)
Tea Parties in
American Memory
•
Americans did not initially remember the
tea incident as “The Boston Tea Party.”
•
It was imaged and labeled in textbooks as
“The Bostonians throwing the Tea
overboard.”
•
Image: The Child’s History of the United
States. Boston: Carter, Hendee & Babcock,
1831, p. 59.
B.B. Thatcher, “Traits of the Tea Party; Being a Memoir of George R.T. Hewes, one of the last of its
survivors.” New York: Harper and Brothers, 1835.
Tea Parties in American Memory
“The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor” becomes
The Boston Tea Party by 1835
Tea Parties in
American Memory
•
“The Boston Tea Party-Destruction of Tea at
Boston Harbor.”
•
Image from: John Gilmary
Shea. A Child’s History of the
United States. McMenamy,
Hess & Company, 1872,
between 380-381.
Centennial Celebrations of the Boston
Tea Party (1873)
Women’s Rights and Tea Parties
Taxation without Representation
The Boston Tea Party
Women’s Suffrage Movement

December 17, 1773


19th century American associated
the Boston Tea party with:
1848: Women’s Rights Convention
is held in Seneca Falls, New York.

The phrase “Taxation without
Representation.”
White women requested voting
rights.

1872: Women jailed, denied trial,
and fined for trying to vote.
1.
2.
The overthrow of tyranny in
America.
3.
The call for white males’ right to
vote.
Centennial
Celebrations as
Women’s Suffrage
Demonstrations
•
1873: Women’s suffrage organizations sponsor
celebrations of the Boston Tea Party at:
1.
2.
3.
Faneuil Hall in Boston
Tremont Temple in Boston
Union League Theatre in NYC
Ticket for the “Boston Tea Party Centennial” hosted by the New England
Woman’s Suffrage Association and the Woman’s Journal.
“
The women of New England who believe that
‘taxation without representation is tyranny,’ and that
our forefathers were justified in defying despotic
power by throwing the tea into Boston harbor, invite
the men and women of New England to unite with
them in celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of
that event in Fanueil Hall.
”
- Invitation to the Centennial Celebration, from History of Woman Suffrage (1886)
•
Suffragists recognized The Boston Tea Party as a patriotic protest.
•
Suffragists re-associated tea parties with women’s rights.
“
This is the result at the close of 100 years of this government,
that I, a native born American citizen, am found guilty of
neither lunacy nor idiocy, but of a crime—a States Prison
offence—simply because I exercised our right to vote. If other
rose to revolution because of a stamp duty, or a tax on tea,
paper or glass, some would perhaps advocate such a measure
here; but I don’t propose to do so.
- Susan B. Anthony, Speech to the Centennial of the Boston Tea Party in New
York City, 1873
•
Susan B. Anthony proposed that women stop paying taxes since
they were not represented in the U.S. government by a vote.
”
Reactions to the
Centennial
Celebrations
•
Harper's Weekly satirized suffragists’
support of the Boston Tea Party on
January 3, 1874.
Image caption: “This is the Most
Magnificent Movement of All. The New
England Woman's Tea Party, believing
that 'Taxation without Representation is
Tyranny,' and that our Forefathers were
justified in resisting Despotic Power by
throwing the Tea into Boston Harbor,
hereby do the Same.”
“The Tea,” Oil on Canvas by Mary Stevenson Cassatt (American 1844-1926), c. 1880.
Tea Parties and Women’s Suffrage, 1870 to 1920s
Tea Parties and Women’s Suffrage, 1870 to 1920s

By the 1920s, tea and tea parties became symbols of the Woman’s Suffrage
Movement.

Tea was linked to protest, patriotism, and women’s right.

The Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association advertised “Suffrage Fund Coffee” in the
Woman’s Journal for women’s groups to buy and sell at fundraisers.

The Woman Suffrage Party distributed “Equality Tea” for women’s groups to sell as a fundraiser.

The Oakland Amendment League sold tea at a cherry festival in 1911 as part of the Woman's
Suffrage Movement.

The Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association advertised “Suffrage tea in a special box” for fifty
cents.

Individual women and women’s groups hosted tea parties to support the right for women to vote.
“
Thygeson: The part I played in suffrage was, I think, a really good one. You had these little
afternoon gatherings of women. You had a cup of tea. A little social gathering. While we were
drinking tea I gave a little talk and they asked questions about what was going on. It was a lot better,
I thought at the time, than to have a lecture. Because a lot of them wouldn't go to a lecture. I took
my own neighborhood when I went out and did that talking.
Sullivan: Did you have them to your house for tea?
Thygeson :No, I went to their houses. They had a little afternoon tea just to hear me talk.
Sullivan: How many women would turn out.
Thygeson: Oh, there might be six or eight women in the group.
- “Interview with Sylvie Thygeson. In The Suffragists: From Tea-Parties to Prison.
Bancroft Library, 1974, 18.
•
Women promote their right to vote by speaking at Tea Parties.
”
Tea Parties in North Carolina
Remembering The Edenton Tea
Party of 1774

October 16, 1901: Members of the NC
DAR met in Henderson, NC.

They hosted a tea party in remembrance
of the Edenton Tea Party.
Memorializing The Edenton Tea
Party of 1774

The women hoped to erect a memorial
“in honor of those grave and patriotic
women, who so early expressed their
determination to do what they could to
help in the struggle for liberty and
independence.”

Moreover, they suggested that “This
society of women should in some way
commemorate this act heroism on the
part of women, and should be
recognized in some tangible way.”
Tea Parties in North Carolina
Raising Money for the Edenton
Tea Party Memorial

Members of the Edenton DAR publish the
“North Carolina Booklet: Great Events in
North Carolina History” to raise money.

Published from 1901-1921.

Monthly publication.

10 cents per issues; $1 for the year.

“The Historic Tea-Party of Edenton” was
issued in August 1901.

Memorial erected in 1910.
Edenton Tea Pot Memorial. Postcard c. 1930-1950.
Women’s Suffrage
in North Carolina
•
Women’s suffrage groups worked hard for the vote.
•
1894: North Carolina Equal Suffrage
Association formed.
•
1897: Woman suffrage bill denied after being sent to
the committee on insane asylums.
•
1913: NC women join the National American
Woman Suffrage Association.
•
1915: Equal Suffrage Bill is defeated in both houses
of the North Carolina state legislature.
•
1920: Nineteenth amendment ratified, after it was
postponed for a week.
Gertrude Weil, far left, and North Carolina Suffragists, c. 1920.
Photo from the North Carolina State Archives.