Author Talk: The Tory's Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary North Carolina
Thursday, March 7, 2024, 6:30 p.m., Daniels Auditorium
Speaker: Dr. Cynthia Kierner, Professor of History, George Mason University
Join the NC Museum of History as we kick off Women’s History Month by welcoming Dr. Cynthia Kierner who will share her newest book, The Tory's Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary North Carolina. Jane Spurgin of Rowan County was a patriot who supported the Revolution. Her husband, William, was a loyalist, who fought for the king. When the war was over, William abandoned his family, leaving Jane to fight to keep the home she and her children were faced with losing because of his Toryism. That fight led her to demand “the common rights of other citizens”—a radical statement for a woman in revolutionary America.
Kierner has published widely in the fields of early American, women’s, and disaster history. Her previous books include Scandal at Bizarre: Rumor and Reputation in Jefferson’s America and the award-winning Martha Jefferson Randolph: Daughter of Monticello, Her Life and Times. Kierner teaches history at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Her next book will be a biography of another notable woman, tentatively titled Mother of the Mets: The Life and Times of Joan Whitney Payson.
This program is made possible by a generous grant from Duke Health Raleigh.