What Was Life Like for Women in Colonial Boston?

Running a Business Was Not Uncommon, Especially for Widows

Oct 28, 2009

In the decades before the Revolution, most Boston women were literate, many ran shops. Also, abortion was legal and getting a divorce was easier than in England.

During this period, in a town of about 16,000, about 100 women, mostly widows, owned shops. Normally, an apprenticeship was required before one could open up a shop as a master craftsman. But widows were exempted from this rule. Some women had businesses as milliners or “mantua-makers”—that is, dressmakers. Their shops would display special imported “fashion dolls” dressed in the latest European styles. Other women were dyers, menders, scourers, saddlers, iron mongers, brew masters, soap makers, bakers, and purveyors of cheese, bacon, seeds and spices.

Mother of John Singleton Copley Sold Tobacco

The mother of John Singleton Copley, one of the most famous America painters of the period, survived by selling tobacco. A published announcement tells of her moving her business: “Mrs. Mary Pelham (formerly the widow Copley of the Long Wharf, Tobacconist) is removed to Lindel’s Row, against the Quaker’s Meeting-House, near the upper end of King Street, Boston, where she continues to sell the best Virginia Tobacco, Cut, Pigtail, and spun, of all sorts, by wholesale or Retail, at the Cheapest Rates.”

Tavernkeeping was a common occupation for widows. Almost as a form of welfare, Boston issued licenses to sell alcohol to poor widows, especially war widows. Other women took in boarders, did washing and sewing, and looked after the children of the wealthy. Some earned extra money by obtaining wool and flax and spinning it into yarn and thread. A woman could also earn extra money by making corsets and gloves to order, and by marking rules on paper for bookkeeping and music. Some women survived as prostitutes. Two such women were Dorcas Griffiths and her daughter Sarah Hinson. Griffiths first sold groceries, tea and linen, then managed to obtain a license to sell liquor. Eventually, she and her daughter earned some part of her living as prostitutes, so the evidence says.

Married Woman Needed Husband's Permission to Sue, Testify, Execute a Will

Spinsterhood could be bleak, but spinsters had a measure of independence that married women lacked. A married woman needed her husband’s permission to sue, make contracts, testify in court, and execute a will. For woman trying to run a business, having a husband could be handicap. Such was the case with “she-merchant” Henrietta Maria East, who ran a millinery shop in Boston in the 1740s. She went to court to dissolve her marriage. Suppliers were reluctant to deal with her out of fear that her husband—a bigamist and fortune hunter with an established reputation for squandering money—would seize the shop’s goods for his own purposes.

Obtaining a divorce in Massachusetts was someone easier than in Britain. In Massachusetts, it was more common for a woman than a man to sue for divorce, but men were more likely than women to successfully have divorces granted. Under the law, adultery was a crime only for a woman. The main crimes women were charged with were “bastardy,” fornication, infanticide, and adultery. Charges against women made up 10 to 20 percent of all criminal charges.

Children Conceived Out of Wedlock

Most woman married. Often enough marriages were hurried along by circumstances. One in three first-born children were conceived out of wedlock. For many women, being married meant being pregnant often. Abortion was legal before “quickening.” That is, within the first trimester. Women did not normally confine themselves during pregnancy. They attended church, did housework, did ironing and went about there lives more or less as usual. It was common to see a pregnant women wearing a long apron tied over her clothing just beneath her breasts. Little girls at play would mimic the fashion with a similar apron and stuff rags under their gowns to pretend to be expectant mothers.

Birth was often attended by a house full of people, who were served “groaning cakes” and “groaning beer.” The woman in labor was termed “unwell.”

Weaning Journeys

Women generally nursed babies for one year. To wean the baby, some women went on “weaning journeys” to be away from the infant for 15 days or so.

Most Boston women, 68 percent, were literate to the extent they could sign their name. By comparison 80 percent of Boston men and less than 40 percent of women from rural Massachusetts could sign their names.

Sources:

Baumgarten, Linda, What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America, Williamsburg, Virginia, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2002.

Bridenbaugh, Carl, Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743-1776, London, Oxford University Press, 1955.

Cott, Nancy F, "Divorce and the Changing Status of Women in Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts." The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Oct., 1976), pp. 586-614.

Forbes, Esther, Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1942.

Frankenstein, Alfred, and the editors of Time-Life Books, The World of Copley, 1738-1815, Alexandria, Virginia, Time Life Books, 1970.

Gross, Robert A., The Minutemen and their World, New York, Hill and Wang, 1976.

Taussig, Charles William, Rum, Romance and Rebellion, New York, Minton, Balch, 1928.

Tunis, Edwin, Colonial Craftsmen and the Beginnings of American Industry, Cleveland, The World Publishing Co., 1965.

Wolf, Stephanie Grauman, As Various as Their Land: The Everyday Lives of Eighteenth-Century Americans, New York, Harper Collins, 1993.

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