On Period Women

[CrazyCholeBlack]

Just like it says, information and resources on women of the period. We've all heard that there are "lots of good rolls for women besides playing the whore" but where to find out about these other rolls is all too often left out. I'd love to have a resource list of books, articles, artists etc for women playing women to find inspiration and information.

So I'll start.

I recently found a book in my local library called Colonial Women of Affairs, before 1776 by Elisabeth Anthony Dexter. It deals exclusively with women who ran businesses of all sorts prior to AWI. The majority of the information is taken from newspapers of the time, and the focus is sadly just outside GAoP, most 1740-1760 but there are rare nuggets as early as 1620. Despite the time flaw, I'm finding the sheer variety of jobs and businesses and the different manner with which the ladies came upon those jobs to be very interesting.

Who else has a resource to share?

[kass]

I've got some great articles on working women in the 17th and 18th centuries that I'll share as soon as I can find the titles. One bases its information on the court records of women who testified as witnesses. This is one of the only times their professions would have been recorded. Another talks about the relative freedom and rights women enjoyed before the Revolutionary War precisely because the rules of property ownership and divorce didn't function as well on the frontier so they were often not enforced. Really good stuff. You'll love it, Chole!

I'm afraid you'd have to obtain the articles through interlibrary loan though. They're from academic journals...

[Salty]

kass,

in yer non exsitent free time could ye post a few of said articles title so that we whobe interested can try to track em down though interlibary thievry er loan?

titles or authors perhaps

cheers

[Lady Alyx]

I would think shop keepers would be next in line....hat shops, dress shops, linen/lace shops, flower vendors, small foods vendors.....what did you find in the book?

[CrazyCholeBlack]

next in line? What line? There isn't a "hierarchy" of jobs for women during the period, just like there isn't one now.

Basically the book is broken into sections to help classify the different jobs that women held.

-tavern/ordinary owner

-she merchant (selling everything from food stuffs, to seeds to eye glasses)

-non traditional women's jobs running businesses previously owned by the men in their lives such as bronze worker, rope walks etc

-dame schools & other teaching roles

-women of medicine (midwives etc)

-writers

Here are a couple of other interesting on-line texts related to period women.

The English Housewife I think someone mentioned this before in another thread. It covers a lot of very interesting subjects from cooking to family health.

Hannah Woolley's The Queen Like Closet

And this one, just because I found it amusing & a good window into the mentality of the time.

About the Duties of Husbands and Wives

[CrazyCholeBlack]

found a few more interesting quotes, specifically about the Feme Sole traders/merchants.

The custom converted the wife of a freeman from the servile status of feme covert into a  feme  sole merchant' with the legal rights of an independent trader. This privilege was only open to a wife who practised a separate trade from her husband, 'a trade with which her husband does not intermeddle'. Most legal handbooks interpret this as meaning that the wife must practise a distinct trade in the sense that they could not both be vintners or haberdashers, though Bohun says that 'if they both exercise the same trade distinctly by themselves, and not meddle the one with the other, the wife is sole merchant'.

A widow, like a spinster, was a feme  sole. Widows were also allowed to carry on their former husband's trades, the period of marriage being seen as the equivalent of an apprenticeship.

Both from The Making of the English Middle Class Business, Society and Family Life in London, 1660–1730 Peter Earle

5. A feme sole trader, is a married woman who trades and deals on her own account, independently of her husband. By the custom of London, a feme covert, being a sole trader, may sue and be sued in the city courts, as a feme sole, with reference to her transactions in London. Bac. Ab. Baron and Feme, M. 6.

In Pennsylvania, where any mariners or others go abroad, leaving their wives at shop-keeping, or to work for their livelihood at any other trade, all such wives are declared to be feme sole traders, with ability to sue and be sued, without naming the husbands. Act of February 22, 1718. See Poth. De la Puissance du Mari, n. 20.

both from http://lawyerintl.com

Whenever any husband…shall neglect or refuse to provide for his wife, or shall desert her, she shall

have all the rights and privileges secured to a feme sole trader…That creditors, purchasers and others

may, with certainty and safety, transact business with a married woman…she may present her

petition to the court of common pleas…setting forth, under affidavit, the facts which authorize her to

act…and if…the court be satisfied of the justice and propriety of the application, such court

may…make a decree…that she shall be authorized to act, have the power and transact

business….And such certificate shall be conclusive evidence of her authority, until revoked by such

court for any failure on her part to perform the duties…made incumbent upon her.

- A Feme Sole Trader Law, 1715

From Incorporating Women: A History of Women and Business in the United States by Angel Kwolek-Folland,

[CrazyCholeBlack]

A little something for the ladies that like to fight

""In 1722 appeared the following advertisement, which was no doubt

typical of others:-

`Challenge.- I, Elizabeth Wilkinson of Clerkenwell, having had some

words with Hannah Highfield, and requiring satisfaction, do invite

her to meet me on the stage and box for 3 guineas, each woman

holding a half a crown in each hand, and the first woman that drops

her money loes the battle.

Answer.- I Hannah Highfield, of Newgate Market, hearing of the

resolutness of Elizabeth Wilkinson, will not fail, God willing, to

give her more blows than words, desiring home blows, and of her on

favor. She may expect a good thumping.'

"They maintained the battle for a long time " says the London

Journal for June 1722, describing this strange battle, "to the no

small satisfaction of the spectators."

Nor were feminine encounters confined to the contests of fists.

Strange as it may seem to modern ideas, prize-fighters with cold

steel were at times assisted by spouses, and matched against other

greatly daring ladies who had the help of their husbands. Thus as

Malcom relates in 1725, "Sutton, the champion of Kent, and a

courageous female heroine of that county fought Stokes, at Figg's,

and his much admired consort of London. 40 pounds was to be given to

the male and female who gave the most cuts with the sword, and 20

pounds for most blows at quarter-staff, besides the collection in

the box."

The entertainments we have described, both at Hockley and other

places continued their course with little interruption until the

middle of the last century."

From "The amusements of old London : being a survey of the sports

and pastimes, tea gardens and parks, playhouses and other diversions

of the people of London from the 17th to the beginning of the 19th

century" by William B. Boulton, 1901.

I have another reference that I can't find now (will add when I do) IIRC it's a similar account of female fighting about the same time from the diary of a dutch/german/danish guy in London at the time.

[Capt. Sterling]

Great stuff Chole!!

[CrazyCholeBlack]

His wife regaled him with how 'two year ago she had fought another female in this place [Hockley in the Hole in Clerkenwell] without stays and in nothing but a shift. They had both fought stoutly and drawn blood, which was apparently no new sight in England'

From 1700, scenes from London Life by Maureen Waller, p 222. Waller is referencing London in 1710; The travels of Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach.

[jessie k.]

That's wonderful!

I wonder who won, Elizabeth or Hannah...