Throughout the Revolutionary War, there are stories of heroism; those who sacrificed to save others, those who put their lives on the line to warn of impending danger. The vast majority of these stories involve men. But there are countless extraordinary women who risked and sacrificed just as much as men.

While women were not allowed to serve in the military, they found other ways to help the war effort. One way they helped was by spying. British soldiers billeted in the homes of colonialists were sometimes too loose with their secrets. Naturally, women took advantage of this. Many times, these women spies were more successful and better at hiding than their male counterparts. Here are just a few women who accomplished extraordinary things to advance their cause during the revolution.

Anna Strong was well-connected within the New York, colonial, upper class, Anna Strong utilized her farmstead on Long Island to help transfer intelligence information to the other members of the Culper ring. Strong’s husband, Selah Strong III, was a prominent Patriot judge who served as a captain during the war. Anna Strong arranged clothes on her clothesline as a means to signal fellow Culper spy Caleb Brewster regarding the location of hidden documents to be transported.

Anna Smith Strong was a spy based in Setauket, Long Island in New York. She was involved in General George Washington’s spy ring known as the Culper Spy Ring headed by Major Benjamin Tallmadge. Strong and several other residents of Long Island were recruited by Tallmadge who had grown up in Setauket. Other members of the Culper Ring were based in New York City where they spied on the British soldiers.

They snuck the information they uncovered to Abraham Woodhull in Setauket who lived next door to Strong. It was Anna Strong's job to signal fellow spy Caleb Brewster that information was ready for him to pick up. She developed an ingenious, almost foolproof signal device to message Brewster: she simply hung her laundry out to dry, in plain sight of British soldiers. Strong hung a black petticoat on her clothesline, along with a number of handkerchiefs.

The black petticoat signaled that a message was ready to be picked up and the handkerchiefs would relay where the message was hidden. Six coves along the shore of Long Island were designated as dead drop locations. The number of handkerchiefs hung corresponded to one of the six coves. This messaging system was never broken throughout the entire Revolution and no one in the Culper Ring was ever caught. As a woman, she was severely underestimated, and by doing her laundry, a normal womanly thing to do, no one suspected that she was doing anything out of the ordinary.

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