The history of women in the United States encompasses the lived experiences and contributions of women throughout American history.The earliest women living in what is now the United States were Native Americans. European women arrived in the 17th century and brought with them European culture and values. During the 19th century, women were primarily restricted to domestic roles in keeping with Protestant values. The campaign for women's suffrage in the United States culminated with the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. During World War II, many women filled roles vacated by men fighting overseas. Beginning in the 1960s, the second-wave feminist movement changed cultural perceptions of women, although it was unsuccessful in passing the Equal Rights Amendment. In the 21st century, women have achieved greater representation in prominent roles in American life.
The study of women's history has been a major scholarly and popular field, with many scholarly books and articles, museum exhibits, and courses in schools and universities. The roles of women were long ignored in textbooks and popular histories. By the 1960s, women were being presented more often. An early feminist approach underscored their victimization and inferior status at the hands of men. In the 21st century, writers have emphasized the distinctive strengths displayed inside the community of women, with special concern for minorities among women.
Colonial era Native American women previous to and during the time of Colonial America were highly regarded as leaders. Many Indigenous women had decision making power and were respected in their communities. After colonization, however, one of the first forms of assimilation that the Native American community experienced was reducing the role of Indigenous women to match the patriarchal status of the English/American women.
The experiences of women during the colonial era varied from colony to colony, but there were some overall patterns. Most of the British settlers were from England and Wales, with smaller numbers from Scotland and Ireland. Groups of families settled together in New England, while families tended to settle independently in the Southern colonies. The American colonies absorbed several thousands of Dutch and Swedish settlers. After 1700, most immigrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured servants—young unmarried men and women seeking a new life in a much richer environment.Herbert Moller, "Sex Composition and Correlated Culture Patterns of Colonial America," William and Mary Quarterly (1945) 2#2 pp. 113–153 After the 1660s, a steady flow of black slaves arrived, chiefly from the Caribbean. Food supplies were much more abundant than in Europe, and there was an abundance of fertile land that needed farm families. However, the disease environment was hostile in the malaria-ridden South, where a large portion of the arrivals died within five years. The American-born children were immune from the fatal forms of malaria.H. Roy Merrens and George D. Terry, "Dying in Paradise: Malaria, Mortality, and the Perceptual Environment in Colonial South Carolina," Journal of Southern History (1984) 50: 533–550,
Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón's unsuccessful American colony in 1526–1527 (San Miguel de Gualdape) involved about 600 colonizers, including women; only about 150 returned home alive.
The first English people to arrive in America were the members of the Roanoke Colony who came to North Carolina in July 1587, with 17 women, 91 men, and 9 boys as the founding colonists. On August 18, 1587, Virginia Dare was born in the colony; she was the first English child born in the territory of the United States. Her mother was Eleanor Dare, the daughter of John White, governor of the Roanoke colony. It is not known what happened to the members of the Roanoke colony.
Virginia
Jamestown, the first English settlement in America, was established in 1607 in what is now Virginia. In 1608 the first English women (two of them, Mistress Forrest and her maid Anne BurrasSmith, John, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England & The Summer Isles ..., cited Virginia, Alice, Katherine, and Margaret.) arrived in Jamestown.Billings, Warren M. Jamestown and the Founding of the Nation. Gettysburg, PA: Thomas Publications, 1991. Originally published 1988. . p. 35. See also previous citation. Burras became the first English woman to marry in the New World, and her daughter Virginia Laydon was the first child of English colonists to be born in Jamestown.Dorman, John Frederick, Adventurers of Purse and Person, 4th ed., v.2, p. 431.
The first Africans since those in Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón's unsuccessful colony in 1526–1527 (San Miguel de Gualdape) were brought to Jamestown in 1619; they consisted of about twenty people, including at least one woman. They were captives originally from the Kingdom of Ndongo in modern Angola, who had been part of a larger group heading to Mexico, and were taken after an attack on their Portuguese slave ship by English privateers. Their arrival is seen as a beginning of the history of slavery in Virginia and also as a starting point for African-American history, given that they were the first such group in mainland British America.
Also in 1619, 90 young single women from England went to Jamestown to become wives of the men there, with the women being auctioned off for 150 pounds of tobacco each (to be paid to the shipping company), as that was the cost of each woman's travel to America. Such voyagers were often called "tobacco brides". There were many such voyages to America for this purpose (the 1619 voyage being the first), with the tobacco brides promised free passage and trousseaus for their trouble.
New England
In New England, the Puritan settlers from England brought their strong religious values and highly organized social structure with them. They believed a woman should dedicate herself to rearing God-fearing children to the best of her ability.
There were ethnic differences in the treatment of women. Among Puritan settlers in New England, wives almost never worked in the fields with their husbands. In German communities in Pennsylvania, however, many women worked in fields and stables. German and Dutch immigrants granted women more control over property, which was not permitted in the local English law. Unlike English colonial wives, German and Dutch wives owned their own clothes and other items and were also given the ability to write wills disposing of the property brought into the marriage. The New England regional economy grew rapidly in the 17th century, thanks to heavy immigration, high birth rates, low death rates, and an abundance of inexpensive farmland. The population grew from 3000 in 1630 to 14,000 in 1640, 33,000 in 1660, 68,000 in 1680, and 91,000 in 1700. Between 1630 and 1643, about 20,000 Puritans arrived, settling mostly near Boston; after 1643 fewer than fifty immigrants a year arrived. The average size of a completed family 1660–1700 was 7.1 children; the birth rate was 49 babies per year per 1000 people, and the death rate was about 22 deaths per year per 1000 people. About 27 percent of the population comprised men between 16 and 60 years old.
The benefits of economic growth were widely distributed, with even farm laborers better off at the end of the colonial period. The growing population led to shortages of good farm land on which young families could establish themselves; one result was to delay marriage, and another was to move to new lands further west. In the towns and cities, there was strong entrepreneurship, and a steady increase in the specialization of labor. Wages for men went up steadily before 1775; new occupations were opening for women, including weaving, teaching, and tailoring. The region bordered New France, which used Indian warriors to attack outlying villages. Women were sometimes captured. In the numerous French and Indian Wars the British government poured money in to purchase supplies, build roads and pay colonial soldiers. The coastal ports began to specialize in fishing, international trade and shipbuilding—and after 1780 in whaling. Combined with a growing urban markets for farm products, these factors allowed the economy to flourish despite the lack of technological innovation.
Schooling Tax-supported schooling for girls began as early as 1767 in New England. It was optional and some towns proved reluctant. Northampton, Massachusetts, for example, was a late adopter because it had many rich families who dominated the political and social structures and they did not want to pay taxes to aid poor families. Northampton assessed taxes on all households, rather than only on those with children, and used the funds to support a grammar school to prepare boys for college. Not until after 1800 did Northampton educate girls with public money. In contrast, the town of Sutton, Massachusetts, was diverse in terms of social leadership and religion at an early point in its history. Sutton paid for its schools by means of taxes on households with children only, thereby creating an active constituency in favor of universal education for both boys and girls.
Historians point out that reading and writing were different skills in the colonial era. School taught both, but in places without schools reading was mainly taught to boys and also a few privileged girls. Men handled worldly affairs and needed to read and write. Girls only needed to read (especially religious materials). This educational disparity between reading and writing explains why the colonial women often could read, but could not write so they used an "X" to sign their names.
Hispanic New Mexico and California
Hispanic women played a central role in traditional family life in the Spanish colonies of New Mexico; their descendants comprise a large element in parts of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Gutierrez finds a high level of illegitimacy, especially among the Indians who were used as slaves. He finds, "Aristocrats maintained mistresses and/or sexually exploited to their slaves but rarely admitted to fathering illegitimate children."
Colonial personalities and activities
Pocahontas