The Seneca Falls Convention is typically seen as the beginning of the first women's rights movement in the United States. Revolutionary Backlash argues otherwise. The debate over women's rights began not in the decades prior to 1848 but during the American Revolution itself. Integrating the approaches of women's historians and political historians, Rosemarie Zagarri explores changes in women's status that occurred from the time of the American Revolution until the election of Andrew Jackson. Spanning the first fifty years of the nation's history, Revolutionary Backlash uncovers women's forgotten role in early American politics and explores alternative meanings for the rise of democracy in the early United States. - Jacket.