Good Wives

Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750

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On sale Dec 29, 2010 | 336 Pages | 9780307772978

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This enthralling work of scholarship strips away abstractions to reveal the hidden--and not always stoic--face of the "goodwives" of colonial America. In these pages we encounter the awesome burdens--and the considerable power--of a New England housewife's domestic life and witness her occasional forays into the world of men. We see her borrowing from her neighbors, loving her husband, raising--and, all too often, mourning--her children, and even attaining fame as a heroine of frontier conflicts or notoriety as a murderess. Painstakingly researched, lively with scandal and homely detail, Good Wives is history at its best.

Part One: Bathsheba
1. The Ways of Her Household
2. Deputy Husbands
3. A Friendly Neighbor
4. Pretty Gentlewoman

Part Two: Eve
5. The Serpent Beguiled Me
6. Consort
7. Travail
8. Mother of All Living

Part Three: Jael
9. Blessed Above Women
10. Viragoes
11. Captives
12. Daughters of Zion

Afterword
© Stephanie Mitchell

LAUREL THATCHER ULRICH is the author of numerous works on early American history and women's history, including A Midwife's Tale, which won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize in History and became the subject of a PBS documentary film. A former MacArthur Fellow and past President of the American Historical Association, she retired from Harvard University in 2018 as 300th Anniversary University Professor. She now lives in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Her online courses "Tangible Things" and "Women Making History" can be found at HarvardX.

View titles by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

About

This enthralling work of scholarship strips away abstractions to reveal the hidden--and not always stoic--face of the "goodwives" of colonial America. In these pages we encounter the awesome burdens--and the considerable power--of a New England housewife's domestic life and witness her occasional forays into the world of men. We see her borrowing from her neighbors, loving her husband, raising--and, all too often, mourning--her children, and even attaining fame as a heroine of frontier conflicts or notoriety as a murderess. Painstakingly researched, lively with scandal and homely detail, Good Wives is history at its best.

Table of Contents


Part One: Bathsheba
1. The Ways of Her Household
2. Deputy Husbands
3. A Friendly Neighbor
4. Pretty Gentlewoman

Part Two: Eve
5. The Serpent Beguiled Me
6. Consort
7. Travail
8. Mother of All Living

Part Three: Jael
9. Blessed Above Women
10. Viragoes
11. Captives
12. Daughters of Zion

Afterword

Author

© Stephanie Mitchell

LAUREL THATCHER ULRICH is the author of numerous works on early American history and women's history, including A Midwife's Tale, which won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize in History and became the subject of a PBS documentary film. A former MacArthur Fellow and past President of the American Historical Association, she retired from Harvard University in 2018 as 300th Anniversary University Professor. She now lives in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Her online courses "Tangible Things" and "Women Making History" can be found at HarvardX.

View titles by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

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