It is virtually impossible to generalize about the degree to which women in early America were "free." What, if anything, did enslaved black women in the South have in common with powerful female leaders in Iroquois society? Were female tavern keepers in the backcountry of North Carolina any more free than nuns and sisters in New France religious orders? Were the restrictions placed on widows and abandoned wives at all comparable to those experienced by autonomous women or spinsters?
Bringing to light the enormous diversity of women's experience, Women and Freedom in Early America centers variously on European-American, African-American, and Native American women from 1400 to 1800. Spanning almost half a millenium, the book ranges the colonial terrain, from New France and the Iroquois Nations down through the mainland British-American colonies. By drawing on a wide array of sources, including church and court records, correspondence, journals, poetry, and newspapers, these essays examine Puritan political writings, white perceptions of Indian women, Quaker spinsterhood, and African and Iroquois mythology, among many other topics.
Editorial Reviews
"Provides compelling testimony that much remains to be learned about women's diverse experiences in colonial North America. This volume explores the multiple contexts of freedom and constraint experienced by women of differing cultures, races, and social and economic conditions, as well as the varying avenues that women who happened also to be spinsters, wives, or widows pursued in order to better difficult irucmstances or to bend seemingly rigid gender roles." --Lorena S. Walsh, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
"This impressive collection showcases some of the best new scholarship on women in the colonial era, covering wide range of topics from almost every geographic area of North America. Women and Freedom in Early America should inspire further exploration of the revitalized field of colonial history." --Joan E. Cashin, author of A Family Venture: Men and Women on the Southern Frontier
About the Author
Larry Eldridge is Assistant Professor of History at the College of Arts and Sciences at Widener University and author of the acclaimed A Distant Heritage: The Growth of Free Speech in Early America, also from NYU Press.
