What Everyone Should Know (formerly, What Every Woman Should Know) is a bi-weekly series on women’s history.

People like to think this was a country founded by men, but it wasn’t. It was co-founded by men. For a long time the actions of men were the only actions deemed valuable enough to be included in history books. Most Americans can name at least one founding father, and many can name more. Though women worked just as hard as men did from the very beginning of our nation, their contributions were not considered valuable enough to be told in those history books and their names are forgotten, or are lost forever. Women featured prominently in the process of our founding, and their social contribution is no longer overlooked by historians and scholars. Today, such historians and scholars understand the value of social history and they have even come up with a name for what women did to help cement our fledgling democracy: Republican Motherhood.

Republican Motherhood is a recent term that describes what colonial mothers did to create the first citizens of our country. The scholarship on this topic stems from voluminous letters and diaries such mothers and their children left, and in the literature of the day. Republican Mothers instructed children in the principles of their new governing documents, and incorporated those lessons into everyday life. Just as a child would learn to button their shirt, they would learn about freedom, patriotism, and sacrificing for their country. During the American Revolution, men were gone from home a lot and, like women in World War II, this kind of self-reliance led to women taking on more and more responsibility and feeling empowered by that.

The idea that mothers had a “special role to play” in making the new country was a new one. It changed the face of womanhood, in fact. All citizens where to be schooled in these principles by their mothers, regardless of gender, and girls began to receive their lessons right alongside boys. One of the most striking results of this phenomenon was the ripple effect it engendered in our culture. It led to a generation of activism on the part of the children who experienced this unique education, which brought about a series of events that led to significant social change, including for women’s education. Eventually, one member of this emerging generation, Mary Lyon, started the first female school, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which later became Mount Holyoke College.