Women's Work in New England, 1620 - 1920

This publication is a collection of papers presented in June of 2001. The material is divided into seven sections each addressing a particular aspect of work where women were expected to assume at least partial if not full responsibility. The first section addresses seventeenth–century washing techniques, explores period New England terms related to women washing linens and linen clothing. The next section provides two views of the femme coverte role that women played in food preparation and agriculture. The third section addresses the routine making of textiles and clothing. The fourth section investigates woman’s role in industry and communications. Section five focuses on woman abolitionists, missionaries, and memory makers. The sixth section explores the gendered roles in healing and childbirth. The seventh and final section looks at two aspects of domestic service.

The following is a list of the title and author of each paper:  Washing Household Linens and Linen clothing in 1627 Plymouth by Maureen Richard, Increase and Vantage: Women, Cows, and the Agricultural Economy of Colonial New England by Pamela J. Snow, Constance Strong’s Diary: Women’s Work in North Pomfret, Vermont, 1910-1920 by Cameron Clifford, “That leisure hour I seldom find”: Hannah Hayden’s Work and Family Economy in Frontier New York, 1806 – 1822 by Amber Degn, “The Fruit of my industry”: Economic Roles and Marital Conflict in New England, 1790 – 1830 by Mary Beth Sievens, One in Every Village: Women in Maine Who Knit for Others by Robin Hansen, Number, Please: New Hampshire Predial Telephone Operators, 1877 – 1920 by Judith Moyer, “We have all something to do in the cause of freeing the slave”: The Abolition Work of Mary White by Mary B. Fuhrer, A New England Goodwife Laboring in Oregon: Mary Richardson Walker, Missionary Pioneer by Judith M. Knowles, Nantucket’s Memory Keepers: Eliza Ann McCleave and the Women of the Nantucket Historical Association by Aimee E. Newell, The Housewife as Healer: Medicine as Women’s Work in Colonial New England by Rebecca J. Tannenbaum, Women’s Travail, Men’s Labor: Birth Stories from Eighteenth-Century New England Diaries by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Eggs on the Sand: Domestic Servants and Their Children in Federal New England by Marla R. Miller, Polish: The Maintenance of Manners by J. Coral Woodbury.