First Generations

Women in Colonial America

Carol Berkin

• Publisher: Hill and Wang
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9780809045617
• eBook ISBN: 9781466806115
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African American History
• Index: History

"A marvelously readable yet scholarly history" of American women—of European, Indigenous, and African backgrounds—in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ( Kirkus Reviews).
The European, Native American, and African women of seventeenth and eighteenth century America were wives, mothers, household managers, laborers, and rebels—and just as important as men in shaping the culture and history of their country.
In First Generations, Carol Berkin delves into the great variety of female lives—as defenders of their native land, pioneers on the frontier, willing immigrants, and courageous survivors of slavery. Through meticulously reconstructed profiles of individual lives, Berkin shows that colonial women, while separated by class, region, and race, were linked by laws, presumptions, and prejudices that defined them by gender. Berkin's gripping portrait gives early American women their proper place in our history.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• PREFACE
• Table of Contents
• 1 - IMMIGRANTS TO PARADISE: WHITE WOMEN IN THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CHESAPEAKE
• 2 - GOODWIVES AND BAD: NEW ENGLAND WOMEN IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
• 3 - THE SISTERS OF POCAHONTAS: NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN IN THE CENTURIES OF COLONIZATION
• 4 - IN A “BABEL OF CONFUSION” WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE COLONIES
• 5 - THE RHYTHMS OF LABOR: AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN IN COLONIAL SOCIETY
• 6 - THE RISE OF GENTILITY: CLASS AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
• 7 - “BEAT OF DRUM AND RINGING OF BELL”: WOMEN IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
• EPILOGUE - FAIR DAUGHTERS OF COLUMBIA: WHITE WOMEN IN THE NEW REPUBLIC
• ALSOBY CAROL BERKIN
• BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
• INDEX
• Notes
• Copyright Page