Rebecca Warner Rawle Shoemaker
{{short description|American memorialist}}
{{use mdy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Rebecca Warner Rawle Shoemaker
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| birth_name =
| birth_date = 1730
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| death_date = 1819
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| occupation = Journal writer
| years_active =
| known_for = Building the Randolph Mansion
| spouse = Francis Rawle
Samuel Shoemaker
| children = Three
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}}
Rebecca Warner Rawle Shoemaker (1730–1819) was an American woman whose journals provide insight into the issues of her day. She built the Randolph Mansion in Laurel Hill at a time when few women built mansions. The house continues to be occupied.{{Cite web |date=2016-03-06 |title=Positively Philadelphia: The Famous House Built By A Woman |url=https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/03/06/positively-philadelphia-the-famous-house-built-by-a-woman/ |access-date=2022-03-25 |language=en-US}}
Early life
File:Randolph House Philly.JPG
Rebecca Warner Rawle Shoemaker (1730–1819)
Her family moved to Philadelphia to follow their Quaker religion, Philadelphia was then the center of Quaker life. Rebecca married Francis Rawle. They lived in what became known as the Randolph Mansion in east Fairmount Park. Rebecca and Rawle had three children, Anna, William, and Margaret,{{Cite web |last=Shoemaker |first=Rebecca |title=Rawle Family Papers, 1682-1921 (bulk 1770-1911) 14 boxes, 37 vols., 10 lin. feet Collection 536 |url=https://hsp.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/migrated/findingaid0536rawle.pdf |website=Honor Society of Pennsylvania}} but Rawle died in a shooting accident in 1761. Rebecca then married Samuel Shoemaker. He was born and raised in Philadelphia and would later become mayor of Philadelphia. He would also lead the Loyalist cause against the colonial revolutionaries. After Samuel fled to England to avoid arrest, the family home (called "Laurel Hill") was seized and sold at auction.
The couple split up. Rebecca started to journal her daily life in 1778.{{Cite journal |last=Buskirk |first=Judith |title=They didn't join the band: disaffected women in the revolutionary war |url=https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/view/25243/25012 |journal=Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies|year=1995 |pages=306–329 }}
Rebecca was able to reclaim her auctioned mansion by 1791.{{Cite news |last=Dickinson |first=Grace |date=September 19, 2019 |title=Tour Fairmount Park's 6 historic mansions at CiderFest |url=https://www.inquirer.com/life/fairmount-park-historic-mansions-museums-houses-lemon-hill-strawberry-mansion-20190919.html}} After Rebecca died in 1819, her son, William, inherited the home.{{Cite web |title=Colonial Sense: Architecture: Towns: Fairmount Park: Laurel Hill Mansion |url=http://www.colonialsense.com/Architecture/Towns/Fairmount_Park/Laurel_Hill_Mansion.php |access-date=2022-12-14 |website=www.colonialsense.com}} The mansion is on the National Register of Historic Places.{{cite web |title=Laurel Hill Mansion - History Highlights |url=https://laurelhillmansion.org/Pages/history.html |access-date=2020-05-15 |publisher=Laurel Hill Mansion}}
Journals
Marrying Samuel Shoemaker made life hard for her and her family because of his loyalist beliefs. This caused Rebecca to lose her estate during the Revolutionary War. In her journals she documented the financial situation of a loyalist before and after the war. In 1804, she described a six-month stay at her daughter Anna's property.
Her journals are historical evidence of life as a former Quaker woman during peace and war.
Legacy
Her children went on to impact society. William Jr. researched the Gettysburg address. Anna also kept journals, describing her experience as a loyalist.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{Cite web |last=Rawle |first=Anna |date=1781 |title=Making the Revolution: American 1763-1791 |url=https://americainclass.org/sources/makingrevolution/war/text7/annarawlepaloyalist.pdf |access-date=2022-03-27 |website=National Humanities Center}}
- {{Cite web |last=Murrow |first=Pamela |date=2021-09-14 |title=10 Amazing Women of the Revolutionary War |url=https://allthingsliberty.com/2021/09/10-amazing-women-revolutionary-war/ |access-date=2022-03-27 |website=Journal of the American Revolution}}
- {{Cite web |last=Rawle |first=Rebecca |date=1730 |title=Rebecca Warner Rawle Shoemaker diary |url=https://discover.hsp.org/Record/ead-Am.137458/Details |access-date=2022-03-27 |website=HSP}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Shoemaker, Rebecca Warner Rawle}}
Category:Writers from Philadelphia
Category:18th-century American diarists
Category:18th-century American women writers