by Gail Collins
The people who deserve my undying thanks for putting up with me while I was writing this book are too numerous to mention, but they certainly include everyone on the New York Times editorial board, particularly Phil Taubman, the deputy editor, whose patience and support were truly above and beyond the call of duty.
Finally, thanks to my agent, Alice Martell, the only person who likes what I write as much as my mother; Henry Ferris of William Morrow, who was the book’s first champion and who endured what was probably the worst Christmas of his existence in order to do a terrific last-minute editing job; and, above all, Dan Collins, without whom nothing would have been any fun.
NOTES
CHAPTER 1: THE FIRST COLONISTS
THE EXTREMELY BRIEF STORY OF VIRGINIA DARE
The story of the Roanoke voyage is constantly being reexamined by historians, although the basic facts about who went and how they arrived never change. It was told for the first time by Richard Hakluyt in his reports on voyages to the Virginia colony, and it will never lose its fascination unless, improbably, someone definitively proves what happened to the colonists.
The inaptly named… Richard Hofstadter, America at 1750, p. 41.
The wife of John Dunton… Paula Treckel, To Comfort the Heart: Women in Seventeenth-Century America, p. 47.
“overgrown with Melons…” Henry Burrage, Early English and French Voyages, p. 288.
The Dares and other English… There are almost as many studies on the Native Americans who were living at the time of the first settlements as there were tribes on the eastern seaboard, although few of them focus on the women. For an overview see chapter 3 of Carol Berkin’s First Generations.
“FEDD UPON HER TILL HE HAD CLEAN
DEVOURED ALL HER PARTES”
Sir Thomas Dale… Karen Ordahl Kupperman, “Apathy and Death in Early Jamestown,” Journal of American History (June 1979), p. 25.
The Jamestown that greeted… Julia Cherry Spruill, Women’s Life and Work in the Southern Colonies, p. 20 (footnote).
People gnawed on… Spruill, p. 5.
Anne Burras: Virginia Bernhard, “Men, Women and Children at Jamestown: Population and Gender in Early Virginia,” Journal of Southern History (November 1992), p. 616.
Temperance Flowerdew: See John Henry Yardley’s Before the Mayflower.
Pocahontas: My take on this somewhat mysterious figure is based, in main, on Paula Treckel’s To Comfort the Heart, pp. 58–61. For a full treatment of everything that’s known, or guessed, about Pocahontas, see Grace Steele Woodward in Three American Indian Women.
The bride-to-be did not confide… David Smits, “‘Abominable Mixture,’” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (April 1987), p. 177.
“IT IS NOT KNOWEN WHETHER
MAN OR WOMAN BE THE MOST NECESSARY”
There wasn’t much prospect… Roger Thompson, Women in Stuart England and America, p. 33.
“If any Maid or single…” Spruill, p. 15.
An even more enthusiastic… Spruill, p. 46.
In 1619, the Virginia House… Spruill, pp. 8–9.
“tobacco brides”: David Ransome, “Wives for Virginia,” William and Mary Quarterly (January 1991), pp. 10–18.
In October 1618, a warrant… “Kidnapping Maidens, to Be Sold in Virginia,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (January 1899), pp. 228–33.
The danger of being dragged… The information in this section comes from William Hart Blumenthal’s Brides from Bridewell, pp. 58–102.
a study in one Maryland county showed… Lois Green Carr and Lorena Walsh, “The Planter’s Wife,” William and Mary Quarterly (October 1977), pp. 548–49.
The legislature reasoned… Carol Berkin and Leslie Horowitz, Women’s Voices, Women’s Lives, p. 16.
The court records reveal… Ralph Semmes, Crime and Punishment in Early Maryland, pp. 96–108.
“What we unfortunat…” Nancy Cott et al., eds., Root of Bitterness: Documents of the Social History of American Women, p. 41.
“PERFORM THE MOST MANFUL EXERCISES AS WELL AS MOST MEN”
Alice Proctor: Spruill, pp. 233–35.
“Many of the Women…” Cott et al., Root of Bitterness, p. 41.
William Byrd described… Thompson, Women in Stuart England and Amerca, p. 105.
Margaret Brent… This section is taken from Mary Beth Norton’s Founding Mothers and Fathers, pp. 282–87, Julia Spruill’s Women’s Life and Work in the Southern Colonies, pp. 236–41, and Lois Green Carr’s “Margaret Brent: A Brief History” in the Maryland State Archives.
“CONTRACTING HERSELF TO. SEVERAL MEN AT ONE TIME”
The niece of the novelist… Alice Morse Earle, Colonial Dames and Good Wives, p. 11.
“a nest of the most notorious…” Kirsten Fischer, “Common Disturbers of the Peace,” p. 15, in Beyond Image and Convention, Janet Lee Coryell et al., eds.
The average union ended… Carr and Walsh, “Planter’s Wife,” p. 552.
Women’s life expectancy… Berkin, First Generations, pp. 10–17.
One minister sued… Thompson, Women in Stuart England and America, p. 39.
Sarah Offley: Cynthia Kierner, Beyond the Household, pp. 11–12.
In 1624, Eleanor Spragg… Spruill, p. 151.
In 1687, William Rascow… Thompson, Women in Stuart England and America, p. 38.
The people who colonized… See Mary Beth Norton’s “Gender and Defamation in Maryland,” William and Mary Quarterly (January 1987), pp. 37–38.
In some areas, a third… Carr and Walsh, “Planter’s Wife,” p. 551.
Ann Fowler: Kathleen Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches and Anxious Patriarchs, p. 95.
The Virginia General Assembly…K. Brown, p. 148.
“WHITE PEOPLE. ARE ENTIRELY
RUINED AND RENDERED MISERABLE”
Mary Johnson: Teresa Amott and Julie Matthaei, Race, Gender and Work, p. 143.
In Charleston…This section is based on Robert Olwell’s “Loose, Idle and Disorderly: Slave Women in the 18th Century Charleston Marketplace,” in More Than Chattel, David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine, eds.
In Virginia, officials… Amott and Matthaei, p. 143.
“I FEAR THE POWER OF ENGLAND
NO MORE THAN A BROKEN STRAW”
Except where otherwise noted, this section is based on Susan Westbury’s “Women in Bacon’s Rebellion,” in Southern Women: Histories and Identities, Virginia Bernhard et al., eds.
Sarah Drummond, the wife… K. Brown, p. 166.
Sarah Grendon: Wilcomb Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia, p. 109.
The female captives went down…Spruill, pp. 234–35.
Mrs. Grendon then admitted… Washburn, p. 127.
Sarah Drummond’s husband… Spruill, pp. 234–36.
“As I live, the old fool…” Mary Flournoy, Essays Historical and Critical, p. 21.
CHAPTER 2: THE WOMEN OF NEW ENGLAND
“HIS DEAREST CONSORT, ACCIDENTALLY FALLING OVERBOARD”
That little phrase is all Cotton Mather had to say about Dorothy May Bradford in his biography of William Bradford. It’s in chapter 1 of the second book of The Ecclesiastical History of New England, From Its First Planting in the Year 1620, Unto the Year of the Lord, 1698. Bradford himself wrote a history of the Plymouth Plantation, which tells about the voyage and the early settlement, but mentions Dorothy May not at all.
“NOT SO HUMBLE AND HEAVENLY AS IS DESIRED”
Except where otherwise noted, the information in this section comes from Lyle Koehler’s A Search for Power.
“Touching our government…” Letter of William Bradford and Isaac Allerton, American Historical Review 8 (1903), pp. 294–301.
When the residents of Chebacco… Thompson, Women in Stuart England and America, p. 106.
By the middle of the century… Roger Thompson, Sex in Middlesex, pp. 88–89.
Pennsylvania eventually gave women… Berkin and Hor
owitz, p. 99.
“PREACHES BETTER GOSPELL
THAN ANY OF YOUR BLACK-COATES”
Unless otherwise noted, the part of this section about Anne Hutchinson is based on Mary Beth Norton’s Founding Mothers and Fathers.
Within a year of her arrival… Koehler, A Search for Power, p. 219.
“Preaches better Gospell…” Norton, p. 368.
“a woman of haughty…” G. J. Barker-Benfield and Catherine Clinton, eds., Portraits of American Women, p. 48.
Emboldened by her success… Another theory is that Hutchinson’s undoing came when she became weak from exhaustion, and stumbled into making the heretical admission that she believed herself to be in direct communication with God.
Reverend Cotton urged… Koehler, A Search for Power, p. 226.
Once exiled… This paragraph is based on Koehler, A Search for Power, pp. 230–32, and Lying-In, by Richard and Dorothy Wertz, p. 22.
Mary Oliver of Salem: Koehler, A Search for Power, pp. 220–21.
Anne Eaton: Janet Wilson James, “Women in American Religious History: An Overview,” in Women in American Religious History, p. 32.
Lydia Wardell: Koehler, A Search for Power, pp. 251–52.
Susanna Hudson: Berkin, First Generations, pp. 95–96.
Anne Bradstreet… Ola Elizabeth Wilson’s biography in Notable American Women, James and James, eds., vol. 1, p. 223.
“CHOPPED INTO THE HEAD
WITH A HATCHET AND STRIPP. D NAKED”
Except when otherwise noted, this section is based on Laurel Ulrich’s Good Wives, and Women’s Captivity Narratives, edited by Kathryn Derounian-Stodola.
Elizabeth Tozier… Koehler, A Search for Power, p. 429.
In 1682, Mary Rowlandson… Thompson, Women in Stuart England and America, p. 105.
“BY MY OWN INNOCENCE
I KNOW YOU ARE IN THE WRONG WAY”
The story of the Salem witch trials, which seems to be of perpetual fascination, has been examined more than any other part of the colonial experience. A good all-around, well-written description of what we know is Frances Hill’s A Delusion of Satan. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum have done some of the most interesting research into the Salem defendants and their accusers, which they published in Salem Possessed. Boyer and Nissenbaum have also published a documentary record of the episode, Salem-Village Witchcraft. Carol Karlsen approaches the story from a feminist perspective in The Devil in the Shape of a Woman. Except when otherwise noted, this section is based on their books. The most recent important revisiting of the Salem legend is Mary Beth Norton’s In the Devil’s Snare. In it, Norton concluded that the trauma of the Indian wars was at the root of the hysteria.
The trouble began during the long winter of 1691–92… This story of Tituba’s fortune-telling is the way most histories of the Salem witch-hunt begin. In her book, Mary Beth Norton argues that the evidence it really happened is too shaky to be accepted, and she begins her own account with the affliction of the girls at the Parris house.
“little sorceries”… This remark, as quoted in Boyer and Nissenbaum’s Salem Possessed (p. 1), comes from Cotton Mather.
Tituba… Like most things about the Salem story, Tituba is subject to different interpretations. Most historians have identified her as a slave from the West Indies. Norton believes she was a Native American.
One observer reported… Bryan Le Beau, The Story of the Salem Witch Trials, p. 63.
But others described… Boyer and Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed, p. 24.
Cotton Mather had published a description… Le Beau, p. 42.
There were virtually no witch trials… Le Beau, p. 34.
Ann Hibbens: Karlsen, and John Demos, Entertaining Satan, pp. 87–88.
Sarah Good cried back… Le Beau, p. 171.
“He lies with the Indian squaws…” Le Beau, p. 141.
Cotton Mather and Margaret Rule: Le Beau, p. 221.
CHAPTER 3: DAILY LIFE IN THE COLONIES
“MY BASON OF WATER FROZE ON THE HEARTH”
Harriet Beecher Stowe described… Jack Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life, p. 135.
Anna Green Winslow: Alice Morse Earle, Diary of Anna Green Winslow, p. xvi.
“Night and morning were made fearful…” Elisabeth Garrett, At Home, p. 111.
There was at most only one real chair…David Hawke, Everyday Life in Early America, p. 56.
“This day is forty years…” Nancy Cott et al., Root of Bitterness, pp. 61–62.
Elizabeth Saltonstall… Ulrich, Good Wives, pp. 74–75.
“FOR SHE HAS BEEN AND IS A GOOD WIFE TO ME”
Alice Morse Earle wrote her histories of everyday life in colonial New England more than a century ago, but they’re still in print and well worth reading. I used Home Life in Colonial Days as a reference for this section, except when otherwise noted.
the New England General Court ordered… Elaine Crane, Ebb Tide in New England, p. 101.
Martha Ballard: One of the recent classics on the colonial period is Laurel Ulrich’s A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard.
A Maine author… Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale, p. 92.
“The women in families…” Elizabeth Buffum Chace, Two Quaker Sisters, p. 37.
In 1664, Elizabeth Perkins… Ulrich, Good Wives, p. 98.
When Ensign Hewlett… Ulrich, Good Wives, p. 46.
“WOMEN CHOOSE RATHER TO HAVE
A THING DONE WELL THAN HAVE IT OFTEN”
On matters of sexuality in American history, I’ll refer again and again to Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America by John D’Emilio and Estelle Freedman. Another very readable book on sexuality is The Empty Cradle: Infertility in America from Colonial Times to the Present, by Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner.
Cotton Mather urged… Koehler, A Search for Power, p. 32.
A third of the accused… Norton, Founding Mothers, p. 78.
New Englanders who survived… Richard Archer, “New England Mosaic,” William and Mary Quarterly (October 1990), p. 497.
Daniel Ela… Berkin, p. 31.
One man who had beaten… Koehler, A Search for Power, 140–41.
If a first child… Ulrich, Good Wives, p. 31.
But between 1720 and 1740… John Demos, “Families in Colonial Bristol,” William and Mary Quarterly (January 1968), p. 56.
A visitor to New York… Treckel, pp. 109–10.
Mary Latham: D’Emilio and Freedman, p. 12.
New Haven justices dismissed… Norton, Founding Mothers, p. 76.
Men who read books about sex… Marsh and Ronner, p. 15.
Many couples believed… Marsh and Ronner, p. 13.
but having sex too often… Koehler, A Search for Power, p. 79.
“THIS MIGHT POSSIBLY BE THE LAST TRIAL OF THIS SORT”
Elizabeth Drinker: The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, p. 216.
In the malaria-ridden… David F. Hawke, Everyday Life in Early America, p. 65.
Benjamin Franklin: Earle, Child Life in Colonial Days, pp. 11–12.
a visitor to Charlestown… Spruill, Women’s Life and Work in the Southern Colonies, p. 46.
Childbirth was a communal affair… My information on childbirth is drawn in the main from Laurel Ulrich’s Good Wives and A Midwife’s Tale.
Samuel Sewall: Sewall, The Diary and Life of Samuel Sewall, p. 9.
Midwives were a critical… Claire Elizabeth Fox, “Pregnancy, Childbirth and Early Infancy in Anglo-American Culture, 1675–1830,” doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1966.
One popular physician: Berkin and Horowitz, p. 19.
“IF I ONLY KNIT MY BROW SHE WILL CRY”
Samuel Sewall: Sewall, The Diary and Life of Samuel Sewall, p. 11.
Sewall felt… Sewall, p. 2.
In 1740 a virulent… Nancy Dye and Daniel Smith, “Mother Love and Infant Death,” Journal of American History (September 1986), pp. 332–35.
Fanny Kemble: Frances Anne Kemble, Journal of a Resid
ence on a Georgian Plantation, p. 99.
The Puritan minister John Robinson… Philip Greven, The Protestant Temperament, p. 37.
Esther Burr: Greven, p. 35.
Madam Coleman: Alice Morse Earle, Child Life in Colonial Days, pp. 101–3.
Susan Blunt… Larkin, p. 34.
There’s a pathetic story… Koehler, A Search for Power, p. 190.
Mrs. Walker: Koehler, A Search for Power, p. 115.
Caroline Howard Gilman: Caroline Gilman, Reflections of a Southern Matron, p. 56.
“NOT HAVING BEEN WETT ALL OVER
ATT ONCE, FOR 28 YEARS PAST”
Some excellent books about everyday life through American history are, fittingly, in the Everyday Life in America series. The Reshaping of Everyday Life by Jack Larkin is one of the best. This section is deeply indebted to it, as well as “The Early History of Cleanliness in America” by Richard and Claudia Bushman, published in The Journal of American History, March 1988, and a doctoral dissertation by Elizabeth Claire Fox, “Pregnancy, Childbirth and Early Infancy in Anglo-American Culture.” Anyone who wants to get better acquainted with Elizabeth Drinker, one of the best journal-keepers of her era, can read The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, edited by Elaine Forman Crane.
In 1798, Elizabeth Drinker… Bushman and Bushman, p. 1214.
At the beginning of the nineteenth… Larkin, p. 163.
“The women are pitifully…” Hawke, p. 72.
In Northampton… Fox, pp. 55–56.
Moreau de St. Mèry…Moreau de St. Mèry’s American Journey, p. 297.
It was a practice… Fox, pp. 244–47.