Reading List for Studies of Colonial Women

Alice Morse Earle, Home Life in Colonial Days (New York: Macmillan, 1898)
Alice Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Harcourt, Braqce, and Howe, 1920)
Elizabeth Dexter, Colonial Women of Affairs:A Study of Women in Business and the Professions in America Before 1776 (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1924)
Mary Sumner Benson, Women in Eighteenth-Century America: A Study of Opinion and Usage (Port Washington, NY: Columbia University Press, 1935)
Julia Spruill, Women’s Life and Work in the Southern Colonies (New York: Russell and Russell, 1938)
Mary Beard, Woman as a Force in History: A Study in Traditions and Realities (New York: Macmillan, 1946).
Richard B. Morris, “Women’s Rights in Early American Law,” in Studies in the History of American Law with Special Reference to the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Colonies (Philadelphia, J.M. Mitchell C., 1959)
Carl, Holiday, Women’s Life in Colonial Days (New York: Ungar, 1960)
Edmund Morgan, The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England (New York: Harper and Row, 1966)
John Demos, A Little Commonwealth (1970)
Alexander Kayssar, “Widowhood in Eighteenth Century Massachusetts: A Problem in the History of the Family,” in Perspectives in American History (1974); Mary P. Ryan, (1975)
D. Kelly Weisberg,”‘Under Greet Temptations Heer’: Women and Divorce in Colonial Massachusetts,” Feminist Studies, 2 (1975)
Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, “The Planter’s Wife: the Experience of White Women in Seventeenth-Century Maryland,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 34 (1977), 542-571
Marilyn Salmon, “Equity or Subversion? Feme Covert Status in Early Pennsylvania,” in Women in America: A History, ed. Carol Ruth Berkin.
Carol Hymowitz, and Michael Weissman, A History of Women in America (New York: Bantam Books, 1978), 1-25
Lorena S. Walsh, “‘Till Death Do Us Part’: Marriage and Family in Seventeenth-Century Maryland,” in The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century: Essays on Anglo-American Society, eds. Thad W. Tate and David Ammerman (Chapel Hill, NC: 1979)
Lyle Koehler, A Search for Power: The Weaker Sex in Seventeenth-Century New England (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980)
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980)
Joan Alexander, Voices and Echoes: Tales From Colonial Women (New York: Quartet Books, 1983)
Mary Beth Norton, “The Evolution of White Women’s Experience in Early America,” American Historical Review 89 (June1986), 593-619
Steven Mintz, and Susan Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life (New York: Free Press, 1988), 1-42
Sara Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York: Free Press, 1989)
Helena S. Wall, Fierce Communion: Family and Community in Early America (Cambridge Ma: Harvard University Press, 1990)
David R. Ransome, “Wives for Virginia, 1621,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 48 (January 1991), 3-18
Joyce D. Goodfriend, Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664-1730 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992)
Carole Shammas, et al, “Anglo-American Household Government in Comparative Perspective,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 53 (January 1995), 104-166
Carol Berkin, First Generation: Women in Colonial America (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996)

Native American Women

Robert Grumet, “Sunksquaws, Shamans, and Tradeswomen: Middle Atlantic Coastal Algonkian Women during the 17th and 18th Centuries,” in Women and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Mona Etienne and Eleanor Leacock, (New York: Praeger, 1980).
Nancy Shoemaker, Negotiators of Change: Historical Perspective on Native American Women (New York: Routledge, 1995)
Barry J. Neilson, “Madam Dorion of the Astorians,” Oregon Historical Quarterly (Sept. 1929)
Anthony F.C.Wallace, “Women, Land, and Society: Three Aspects of Colonial Delaware Life,” Pennsylvania Archeologist 17 (1947), 1-35
Martha C. Rundle, “Iroquois Women, Then and Now” in Symposium on Local Diversity in Iroquois Culture, ed, William N. Fenton, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 149 (Wash. D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951)
Walter A. O’Meara, Daughters of the Country: The Women of the Fur Traders and Mountain Men (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1968)
Louise S. Spindler, Menomini Women and Culture Change (New York: Millwood, Kraus Reprint, 1974)
Jean Johnston, “Molly Brant Mohawk Matron,” Ontario History, 56 (June 1964): 105-24
Philip Barbour, Pocahontas and Her World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970)
Judith Brown, “Economic Organization and the Position of Women among the Iroquois,” Ethnohistory 17, (1970)
Sara Evans, “The First American Women,” in Sara Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York: Free Press, 1989)
Ruth Landes, The Ojibwa Women (New York: Norton, 1971)
John Upton Terrell and Donna M. Terrell, Indian Women of the Western Morning: Their Life in Early America (New York: Dial, 1974)
Eleanor Leacock and Jacqueline Goodman, “Montagnais Marriage and the Jesuits in the Seventeenth Century: Incidents from the Relations of Paul Le Jeune,” Western Canadian Journal of Anthropology 6 (1976): 77-91
Rayna Green, “Native American Women,” Signs 6 (Winter 1980), 248-267
Joan Jensen, “Native American Women and Agriculture: A Seneca Case Study,” Sex Roles 3/5 (1977), 432-441
Laura F. Klein, “Contending with Colonization: Tinglit Men and Women in Change,” in Women and Colonization, Etienne and Leacock (1980)
Eleanor Leacock, “Montagnais Women and the Jesuit Program for Colonization,” in Women and Colonization, Etienne and Leacock (1980)
Diane Rothenberg, “The Mothers of the Nation: Seneca Resistance to a Quaker Intervention,” in Women and Colonization, Etienne and Leacock (1980)
Margaret C. Szasz, “Poor Richard Meets the Native American: Schooling for Young Indian Women in the Eighteenth Century Connecticut,” Pacific Historical Review, XLIX, No. 2 (1980): 215-35
Alice Kehoe, North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1981)
Neal Salisbury, Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500-1643 (New York, 1982)
Daniel Richter, “War and Culture: the Iroquois Experience,” William and Mary Quarterly, 53 (Oct. 1983), 528-59
Jacqueline Petersen, The New Peoples: Being & Becoming Metis in North America (Chicago: University of Illinois, 1985)
Helen C. Roundtree, Pocahontas’ People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries (1990)
Karen Anderson, Chain Her by One Foot: The Subjugation of Native Women in Seventeenth-Century New France (New York: Routledge, 1991)
Carol, Devens, Countering Colonization: Native American Women and Great Lakes Mission, 1630-1900 (Berkeley: University of California, 1992)
Natalie Z. Davis, “Iroquois Women, European Women,” in Margo Hendricks and Patricia Parker, eds., Women, “Race,” and Writing (London: Routledge, 1994)
Laura F. Klein, and Lillian A. Ackerman, Women and Power in Native North America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995).
Mary E. Young. “Women, Civilization and the Indian Question,” in Mabel E. Deutrich and Virginia C. Purdy, eds, Clio was a Woman (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1980), 98-110.
Nancy Shoemaker, “Kateri Tekakwitha’s Tortuous Path to Sainthood,” in Negotiators of Change, Shoemaker (1995).

African-American Women

Jean R. Soderlund, “Black Women in Colonial Pennsylvania,” in Our American Sisters: Women in American Life and Thought (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1987)
William Piersen, Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1988).
Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial America (New York: Norton, 1975)
Carole Shammas, “Black Women’s Work and the Evolution of Plantation Society in Virginia,” Labor History 26 (1985), 5-28
Allan Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800 (Williamsburg, VA: University of North Carolina Press, 1986).

Witches, Quakers, and Jezebels

Emery Battis, Saints and Sectaries: Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian Controversy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Chapel Hill, NC: Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, by University of North Carolina Press, 1962)
Horatio Rogers, “Mary Dyer Did Hang Like a Flag,” in The Quaker Reader, ed. Jessamyn West (New York: Viking Press, 1962), 168-175
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974)
Mary Maples Dunn, “Saints and Sisters: Congregational and Quaker Women in the Early Colonial Period,” American Quarterly, 30 (Winter 1978), 582-601, and “Women of Light,” in Women of America: A History, eds. Carol Ruth Berkin and Mary Beth Norton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979)
Lyle Koehler, “The Case of the American Jezebels: Anne Hutchinson and Female Agitation During the Years of the Antinomian Turmoil, 1636-1640,” in Women’s America: Refocusing the Past, eds. Linda K. Kerber and Jane DeHart Mathews (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982)
John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982)
Annette Kolodny, The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1984), 17-34.
N.E.H. Hull, Female Felons: Women and Serious Crime in Colonial Massachusetts (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1987)
Mary Beth Norton, “Gender and Defamation in Seventeenth-Century Maryland,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 44 (January 1987), 3-39.
Jean R. Soderlund, “Women’s Authority in Pennsylvania and New Jersey Quaker Meetings, 1680-1760,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 44 (1987), 722-749
Carol F. Karlsen, Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (New York: Norton, 1987)
Elizabeth Potts Brown and Susan Mosher Stuart, eds., Witnesses for Change: Quaker Women Over Three Centuries (New Brunswick, N.J.: 1989).
Mary Beth Norton, “Gender, Crime, and Community in Seventeenth Century Maryland,” in The Transformation of Early American History: Society, Authority, and Ideology, eds. James Henretta, Michael Kammen, and Stanley N. Katz (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991)
June Namias, White Captives: Gender and Ethhnicity on the American Frontier (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993).
David R. Sewell, “‘So Unstable and Like Mad Men They Were’: Language and Interpretation in Early American Captivity Narratives,” in A Mixed Race: Ethnicity in Early America , ed. Frank Shuffleton (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Daniel Williams, “The Gratification of that Corrupt and Lawless Passion: Character Types and Themes in Early New England Rape Narratives,” in A Mixed Race, Shuffelton (1993)
Kathleen M. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: Institute of Early American History and Culture, University of North Carolina Press, 1996).
Frances Hill, A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials (New York: Doubleday, 1995)
Marc Mappen, ed., Witches and Historians: Interpretations of Salem 2nd ed. (Malabar, FL: Krieger Publications, 1996)
Marilynne K. Roach, In the Days of the Salem Witchcraft Trials (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1996)
Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie, eds., The Devil’s Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
Charles Peter Hoffer, The Salem Witchcraft Trials: A Legal History (Lawrence, KA: University Press of Kansas, 1997).

Octorara Area High School

Octorara Area High School is in Atglen, Chester County, Pennsylvania. I found a few documents in my files and thought I would share.

Class of 1984 Commencement Booklet

This is a scan of the Twenty-eighth Commencement, Octorara Area High School Graduation Booklet, Class of 1984. Graduation took place on Sunday, June 3, 1984.

Here’s a pdf of the 1984-06-03 Octorara HS Commencement Booklet

Class of 1986 Commencement Booklet

This is a scan of the Thirtieth Commencement, Octorara Area High School Graduation Booklet, Class of 1986. Graduation took place on Sunday, June 8, 1986.

Here’s a pdf of the 1986-06-08 Octorara HS Commencement Booklet

New York World Fair 1939-1940

The 1939–40 New York World’s Fair was a world’s fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York. It was attended by over 44 million people. It was the first exposition to be based on the future, with an opening slogan of “Dawn of a New Day”, and it allowed all visitors to take a look at “the world of tomorrow”.

Map of the New York World’s Fair 1939-1940

My grandparents, Katherine and Bruce Farquhar, attended the fair, possibly because Bruce worked for DuPont at their rayon plant, which debuted nylon stockings at the fair.

The fair saw many firsts, including the first major public debuts of color photographs, air conditioning, the fax machine and nylon pantyhose. DuPont was one of many large companies that turned up to exhibit its wares, one of which was the brand-new nylon pantyhose. Before nylon, women had to choose between wool — which was hot — and silk, which ran easily. Nylon was a revolution in women’s legwear. To show off the new material, DuPont had knitting machines on display, producing pantyhose — which female models would then play tug-of-war with to show how sturdy the new garments were, according to Curbed NY. Though nylons debuted at the fair, where DuPont dubbed the material “strong as steel, as fine as spider’s web,” they weren’t available for purchase outside the fair until May 1940, according to ABC News. They sold for $1.35 — or more than $20 a pair in today’s money. Although women loved them right away, once the U.S. entered the war nylon had to saved for the war effort and women had to hold off on the hose.” Source: A look back at some of the coolest attractions at the 1939 World’s Fair

Modeling Nylons at the NY World’s Fair 1940, Hagley Archive

The fair had a number of fascinating attractions, including the Trylon and Perisphere, an oblelisk and a globe, that served as symbols of the fair.

“By far the most impressive exhibits of the Fair were the 700-foot Trylon and 200-foot Perisphere — the spike and ball, to less reverent New Yorkers,” the News wrote in its 1939 coverage of the festivities. “Inside the 18-story Perisphere, in an auditorium the size of Radio City Music Hall, thousands rode on two moving balconies and looked down on Democracy, a mammoth model of the city of tomorrow — a city of broad streets, many parks, and large buildings.” Source: A look back at some of the coolest attractions at the 1939 World’s Fair

Wikipedia says this about the two structures:

“The Trylon and Perisphere were two monumental modernistic structures designed by architects Wallace Harrison and J. Andre Fouilhoux that were together known as the Theme Center of the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The Perisphere was a tremendous sphere, 180 feet (55 m) in diameter, connected to the 610-foot (190 m) spire-shaped Trylon by what was at the time the world’s longest escalator. The Perisphere housed a diorama by Henry Dreyfuss called Democracity which, in keeping with the fair’s theme “The World of Tomorrow”, depicted a utopian city-of-the-future. The interior display was viewed from above on a moving sidewalk, while a multi-image slide presentation was projected on the dome of the sphere. After exiting the Perisphere, visitors descended to ground level on the third element of the Theme Center, the Helicline, a 950-foot-long (290 m) spiral ramp that partially encircled the Perisphere.”

My grandfather took a picture of the Trylon and the Perisphere:

1939 NY World Fair Trylon and Perisphere

He also took photos of other areas of the fair, as seen here:

Unfortunately, all the photos have some discoloration in the middle.

Sources

Collecting Caves

My family is on a quest to visit all the caves in Pennsylvania. So far, we’ve hit four.

Indian Echo Caverns

Echo Dell
368 Middletown Rd
Hummelstown, PA 17036
(717) 566-8131
http://indianechocaverns.com/

We visited this one in 2008. I forgot to take pictures of it.

Penns Cave

Penn’s Cave
222 Penns Cave Road
Centre Hall, PA 16828
(814) 364-1664
http://pennscave.com/
Glide through the all-water limestone cavern on the tour, given entirely by boat. About 14 miles and 22 minutes southeast from Bellefonte.

We saw this twice: in 2015 and 2017. I didn’t take many pictures of this cave.

2015-04-10 Penn's Cave 3

2015-04-10 Penn’s Cave 3

Woodward Cave

Woodward Cave
Route 45 in Centre County, Woodward, PA 16882
Mid-way between State College and Lewisburg
814-349-9800
www.woodwardcave.com
Open 10-4 on Fridays
27 miles east from Bellefonte (42 minutes), near Bald Eagle State Forest

We visited this one in June 2017.

2017-06-22 Woodward Cave Entrance, AM

2017-06-22 Woodward Cave Entrance, AM

2017-06-22 Woodward Cave Rock Formation, AM

2017-06-22 Woodward Cave Rock Formation, AM

2017-06-22 Woodward Cave A Rock Formation, AM

2017-06-22 Woodward Cave A Rock Formation, AM

Laurel Caverns

Laurel Caverns is located off route 40 east of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, about 50 miles south of Pittsburgh. The GPS address is 1065 Skyline Drive, Farmington, PA 15437. https://laurelcaverns.com/. Nearby sites are: The Summit Inn, Fort Necessity National Park, Nemacolin Woodlands, Ohiopyle State Park, Kentuck Knob, and Fallingwater. The cave temperature is a constant 52 degrees.

We took the combination guided tour and self-exploration. The guided tour is described this way: “This 30 minute guided tour shows the passages seen when David Cale took the first guided tour into Laurel Caverns on its opening day in 1964. Today, it represents what one sees while walking the last 500 feet of the self-guided tour. Though there are some slopes, there are no steps. It is the proper choice for those who, for whatever reason, would prefer to avoid stairways and the strenuous 200 foot uphill climb on the self-guided tour.”

The self guided tour was described this way: “This 45-50 minute tour covers three passages that were added to the 1964 tour with the construction of steps between 1973 and 1990. Because it involves many steps and its most distant point, the Fault-line Room, is 170 feet below the Visitors’ Center, this option is not recommended for those who would find walking up three flights of stairs to be challenging.” This tour was a loop that went 17 stories below ground, past a waterfall, and then back up lots of steps and steep hills to the surface.

2021-07-21 Laurel Caverns 11

2021-07-21 Laurel Caverns 11

2021-07-21 Laurel Caverns

2021-07-21 Laurel Caverns

2021-07-21 Laurel Caverns

2021-07-21 Laurel Caverns

This cave was interesting in that it has 4 MILES of passages underground. No, we didn’t walk them all. There are special spelunking tours for hardcore people who are willing to go down into the dark with lights and a guide.

Armstrong County, PA, Postcards

Armstrong County is located in western Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. It was carved out in 1800 from sections of Allegheny, Westmoreland and Lycoming Counties and named for John Armstrong, who represented Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress and served as a major general during the Revolutionary War. Most of the postcards shown here are from the county seat of Kittanning, situated along the east bank of the Allegheny River, and meaning “on the main river” in the Delaware language of local peoples.

St Paul's Episcopal Church, Kittanning, PA

St Paul’s Episcopal Church, Kittanning, PA

Armstrong County Court House, Kittanning, PA

Armstrong County Court House, Kittanning, PA

Armstrong County Hospital, Kittanning, PA

Armstrong County Hospital, Kittanning, PA

Bird's-Eye View of Kittanning, PA Showing New Bridge over Allegheny River

Bird’s-Eye View of Kittanning, PA Showing New Bridge over Allegheny River

Central School, Kittanning, PA

Central School, Kittanning, PA

First Methodist Church, Kittanning, PA

First Methodist Church, Kittanning, PA

Kittanning High School, Kittanning, PA

Kittanning High School, Kittanning, PA

Market Street, looking East, Kittanning, PA

Market Street, looking East, Kittanning, PA

Market Street, Looking from McKean to Water, Kittanning, PA

Market Street, Looking from McKean to Water, Kittanning, PA

Market Street, Looking Toward River, Kittanning, PA

Market Street, Looking Toward River, Kittanning, PA

St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Kittanning, PA

St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Kittanning, PA