Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 [Paperback]

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0679732578 | ISBN-13: 978-0679732570 | Publication Date: June 4, 1991

This enthralling work of scholarship strips away those 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Ulrich] makes a modern reader understand what it would have been like to have been born female in early New England...a truly remarkable achievement." -- Mary Beth Norton, Cornell University

A gravestone in northern New England proclaims that a woman was "Eminent for Holiness...Prudence, Sincerity...Meakness...Weanedness From ye World...Publick-Spiritedness ...Faithfulness & Charity."

"A major addition to our historical understanding of women in colonial New England...a path-breaking depiction of wives and mothers." -- Kathryn Kish Sklar, S.U.N.Y., Binghamton

From the Inside Flap

This enthralling work of scholarship strips away those 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.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (June 4, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679732578
• ISBN-13: 978-0679732570
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #91,442 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Involves you like a novel, October 21, 2000

By 

"gaios33" (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (Paperback)

I was also required to read this in college--last year in fact--for a seminar on Colonial American society. I was not able to finish it in the week we were given to read it...I liked it so much, that I finished it over the summer as my recreational travel reading! She gives you all the details, the colors, the textures, the sights, sounds, smells, and even the tastes of what it was like to be a woman in the early years of settlement in this country. Particularly enjoyable was reading about the living connection of Ulrich's own experiences working with cows, baking pies, preparing preserves, and speaking with old women in her little New England community.
What began to annoy me after I read this book was when people implied that nothing existed before 1776, the "birth of this country"--how could I believe that after living in the century prior to 1750 through this perceptive book? Amazing to read, amazing to think about, and amazing in the way it ultimately changes your paradigm. I only wish all history books were as absorbing as this.

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brings to life a neglected part of American history, May 5, 2002

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (Paperback)

Good Wives sheds an illuminating light on the lives of early American women in New England. Ulrich does a great job in proving that these women's lives were far from static and submissive, a fact long lines of historians have never realized or have ignored. Of course, one reason New England's pre-colonial women have not been studied to any vast degree is the fact that primary (and even secondary) source material is almost nonexistent. For example, there is no female diary written before 1750. Ulrich deeply mines the sources that are extant and presents her findings in a way that is highly organized, richly detailed, and quite illuminating. Her main sources consist of court records, probate records, family papers (which include only a very small number of letters written by women), diaries of men, church records, and the contents of ministerial sermons. She is very careful to qualify the reliability and utility of each source, and, in a bibliographical essay, she points to the shortcomings of previous historical monographs that either ignored colonial women or dismissed their influence in colonial life.

Ulrich states that this book is a study of role definition, and she organizes her text around three role clusters associated with three Biblical women (an appropriate framework for the religious societies of colonial New England). Her three prototypes are Bathsheeba for economic affairs, Eve for sexual/reproductive matters, and Jael for matters of female aggression within the bounds of religion. Ulrich identifies and expounds upon the following roles for colonial New England women: housewife, deputy husband, consort, mother, mistress, neighbor, Christian, and--in some cases--heroism. While women were subservient to men, they could assert themselves to certain degrees within the social framework of life. For example, women commonly helped men with their work, conducted business matters in the place of a husband who was unavailable, oversaw the raising of all neighborhood children collectively, dominated the frequent occasions of childbirth, and indirectly exercised influence within the churches. In some of the most interesting material in the book, Ulrich examines the accounts of females captured by Indians. Although she finds significant differences between them in terms of their levels of submissiveness and aggression toward their captors, she develops a framework in which these differences can be understood within early New England society as a whole. The real magic of the book is its success in describing the normal, daily lives of women and comparing and contrasting the stories of those residing in urban centers, town outskirts, and frontier homes. While the lack of primary source material makes it impossible to know the true aspects of these pioneer New England women, Good Wives offers a sweeping yet individualized picture of an important part of colonial society in all its aspects, a society in which the boundaries of men and women did sometimes blur within the individual household.

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for anyone interested in American history, June 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (Paperback)

How can any history can be written as though 50% of the population doesn't exist? This book gives a clear idea of what that other 50% was doing while the others were becoming "historic". It becomes clear that these women were not cut from a cookie-cutter, and their position in society was not so stagnant or ineffectual as modern Americans like to believe.