USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 3 > Part 31
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However one may prefer to dwell upon the soberer side of Massachusetts during the Revolution, the picture will lack accuracy if we leave out the more frivolous women. Among these also, we must not omit the professional prostitutes who were well known in Revolutionary Boston, British and Patriot alike.
WOMEN IN POLITICS
When Thomas Jefferson wrote his tremendous words : "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," he doubtless had in mind "men," as the human race. He was unconsciously opening up nebulous ideas which were electri- fying thinking women as well as men. Those ideas involved challenge to class; and to economic control, the basis of
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class. They were a challenge to any sort of arbitrary control -eventually they upset the conception of women as in subjec- tion to men.
That clause about deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed-the right of those who suffer to refuse allegiance and even to insist upon the institution of a new government-was also to have its complete application near a century and a half later. In the Worcester records, the list of qualified voters for March, 1775, shows the names of Sarah Chandler, Mary Stearns, and Mary Walker. There is also evidence that in eighteenth-century Middleboro, "the sisters" were voting in church affairs. However, these are exceptional instances. In general no woman, married or single, voted even in parish matters. Legally, husband and wife were one person and the "husband was that person." He was likewise the owner of his wife's personal property. She could make no will without his consent, and if he chose he could will her own property away from her. Her hus- band might appoint an entire stranger guardian of her chil- dren. Before 1787, without her husband's consent no court could give her the power to sell or mortgage her own lands, though she were starving. A Massachusetts law of 1787 authorized the Supreme Court, if it chose, to permit a married woman to convey her own real estate if her hus- band had abandoned her and refused to support her.
EARLY SUFFRAGISTS
Of the nonentity of married women before the law in an age when practically all women married, Abigail Adams was well aware. She wrote to John, in the epochal Continental Congress, suggesting : "And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power in the hands of the husbands. Remember how all would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation."
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The husband threw back the ball. "As to your extraor- dinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bonds of government everywhere. . .. But your letter was the first intimation that another tribe, more numerous and powerful than all the rest, were grown discontented. . .. I begin to think the ministry as deep as they were wicked. After stirring up Tories, land-jobbers, trimmers, bigots, Canadians, Indians, negroes, Hanoverians, Hessians, Russians, Irish Roman Catholics, Scotch renegades, at last they have stimulated the to demand new privileges and threaten to rebel." Abigail's mind had seen what John Adams overlooked, that the logical result of the startling Revolutionary ideas was the same for women as for men. Hence her rebuke: "I cannot say that I think you are very, generous to the ladies, for whilst you are proclaiming peace and good-will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives. But you must remember that an arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken."
Notwithstanding her light touch, it was obvious that she was pondering over the rights of women, though the phrase had not yet become a slogan. It would seem that she was even questioning the ethics of men in requiring women to resign their names for those of their husbands. "Why", she once saucily asked dignified John, "should we not assume your titles, when we give up our names?" In every phase of her thinking except that of religion (in which she appears wholly orthodox) this Revolutionary woman was anticipating twentieth-century feminism.
EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN
"Fair seed 'time" had the souls of these Massachusetts women, and this generation is justified in believing that the Revolution had a permanent effect on the feminine Massa- chusetts mind.
(1) Thousands of bounty coat-makers, spinners, weavers, and knitters performing war-work, but receiving fixed wages, must have discovered that like men, women can be economi- cally independent, and that economic independence increases individual freedom. This must have left its mark on
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women's minds, though the cessation of the demand for war supplies, the return of men to their natural occupa- tions, and the codification of laws curtailing the freedom of women in affairs, relegated their sex for half a century to a more restricted life than many of its members had enjoyed in colonial days.
(2) Women's war work could not have failed to make men more sensitive to women as individuals, and there seems little doubt that the Revolution hastened the enactment of the first law ameliorating the conditions of married women, and the Act of 1789, which first opened to girls the public schools of Boston.
(3) The Revolutionary phrases led the abler Massachu- setts women to think as vigorously as men. If all men had certain "inalienable rights," did not women have the same? If governments derive "their just power from the consent of the governed," can they act justly without including the consent of women?
It is significant that the first organized revolt of women was precipitated by four women of whom two were daugh- ters of a Massachusetts woman of the Revolution. Lucy Fol- ger, a kinswoman of Benjamin Franklin, married one of the Coffins on Nantucket Island. Two daughters of this union, Lucretia, whom the world knows as Lucretia Mott, born on Nantucket Island on January 3, 1793, and her sister, Martha Coffin Wright, sat round a tea-table in July, 1848, with their brilliant friends Mary Ann McClintock and Elizabeth Cady Stanton of New York State. They determined to call a Woman's Rights Convention. But a convention required a codification of woman's grievances and statement of her case. How would four women without political experience accomplish such a task? Pride forbade their asking the aid of men! Then on one of those keen brains flashed the thought: Why not take the Declaration of Independence, and for the tyrant "king" substitute "men," and to the "rights of men" add the "rights of women?"
A few days later (July 19, 1848), a large group of men and women met at Seneca Falls and, after free discussion and due parliamentary procedure, adopted the Declaration of Sentiments. In this manner eighty years ago Elizabeth
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Cady Stanton, Mary Ann McClintock and two descendants of a Massachusetts woman of the Revolution launched upon the world an organized revolt of women, which had its seeds in the Revolution and which has never ended.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Many town and county histories contain material on the life and private and public services of Massachusetts women. Cited herein will be found titles of a few such works, of especial significance for the subject of the chapter.
ADAMS, Mrs. ABIGAIL (SMITH) .- Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams (Boston, Wilkins, Carter, 1848)-Contains four letters, written before her marriage, which are not in Familiar Letters.
ADAMS, JOHN and ADAMS, Mrs. ABIGAIL (SMITH) .- Familiar Letters of John Adams and his Wife Abigail Adams, during the Revolution (New York, Hurd and Houghton, 1876).
ADAMS, JOHN .- Works (10 vols., Boston, Little, Brown, 1850-1856) - Edited by C. F. Adams. Volumes II and III contain his diaries, quoted frequently in this chapter.
ANDREWS, JOHN .- "Letters of John Andrews, Esq., of Boston, 1772-1776" (Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, Vol. VIII, pp. 316- 412, Boston, 1866)-Edited by Winthrop Sargent. Valuable for life in Boston during the siege.
BENNETT .- [Extracts from a manuscript history of New England written in 1740] (Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, Vol. V, pp. 108-126, Boston, 1862)-See pp .. 125-126 concerning women's customs.
BERKSHIRE ASSOCIATION OF CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS .- Proceedings at the Centennial Commemoration of the Organization of the Associa- tion, held at Stockbridge, Mass., Oct. 28, 1863 (Boston, 1864)-See pp. 54-56 for a valuable extract from the diary of Mrs. Quincy, the wife of President Quincy of Harvard College, describing a journey from Stockbridge to Boston with Madam Dwight.
BOWDITCH, WILLIAM INGERSOLL .- Taxation of Women in Massachusetts (Cambridge, Wilson, 1875)-A note on page 4 quotes the statistics of population according to sex as recorded in the colonial census of 1765.
BOWDITCH, WILLIAM INGERSOLL .- Women Suffrage a Right, not a Priv- ilege (Cambridge, University Press, 1879)-Pages 15-16 give a lawyer's summary of the restricted property rights of Massachusetts married women in the period of the Revolution.
BRIGGS, GEORGE W .- "Memoir of Daniel A. White" (Essex Institute, Historical Collections, Vol. VI, pp. 1-24, Salem, 1864)-See pp. 1-2 for a reference to the mother of Daniel A. White.
BROWN, ALICE .- Mercy Warren; with Portrait (N. Y., Scribner's, 1896)- More interesting as a literary than as an historical study. At times wordy and indefinite.
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COLESWORTHY, DANIEL CLEMENT .- John Tileston's School. Boston, 1778 1789; 1761-1776. Also his Diary from 1761 to 1766 (Boston, Anti- quarian Book Store, 1887)-See p. 68 for proof that girls were admitted to private writing schools in Boston.
CRAFTS, JAMES MONROE, and WILLIAM FRANCIS, compilers .- The Crafts Family (Northampton, Mass., Gazette Printing Co., 1893)-See pp. 172-173 for ten-year-old Nabby Craft's war work.
CURWEN, SAMUEL .- The Journal and Letters of Samuel Curwen, an American in England, from 1775 to 1783; with an Appendix of Bio- graphical Sketches (Boston, Little Brown, 1864)-Edited by Ward. Contains a letter of Hannah Quincy Lincoln and brief biographies of her brothers.
DEXTER, Mrs. ELISABETH (ANTHONY) .- Colonial Women of Affairs; a Study of Women in Business and the Professions in America before 1776 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1924)-A scholarly and an illu- minating record of women's work outside of the domestic circle.
DRAPER, Mrs. BELL (MERRILL), compiler .- Honor Roll of Massachusetts Patriots heretofore Unknown (Privately issued for the Massachusetts chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Boston, 1899) -A list of men and women who lent money to the federal govern- ment, 1777-1779, compiled from MS. records in the United States Treasury at Washington.
DWIGHT, Mrs. ELIZABETH AMELIA (WHITE) .- Memorials of Mary Wilder White; a Century ago in New England (Boston, Everett Press, 1903) -- Edited by Mary Wilder Tileston.
EARLE, Mrs. ALICE (MORSE) .- Child Life in Colonial Days (N. Y., Macmillan, 1899).
EARLE, Mrs. ALICE (MORSE) .- Colonial Dames and Good Wives (Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, 1895).
EARLE, Mrs. ALICE (MORSE) .- Costume of Colonial Times (N. Y., Scrib- ner's, 1894).
EARLE, Mrs. ALICE (MORSE) .- Curious Punishments of Bygone Days (Chi- cago, Stone, 1896).
EARLE, Mrs. ALICE (MORSE) .- Customs and Fashions in Old New England (N. Y., Scribner's, 1894).
EARLE, Mrs. ALICE (MORSE) .- Home Life in Colonial Days (N. Y., Mac- millan, 1898).
EARLE, MRS. ALICE (MORSE) .- Old Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth (N. Y., Macmillan, 1891).
EARLE, Mrs. ALICE (MORSE) .- Two Centuries of Costume in America, MDCXX-MDCCCXX (N. Y., Macmillan, 1903).
ELLERY, HARRISON .- "Genealogy of the Family of Thomas Swift of Dor- chester, Mass., 1634" (JOSEPH GARDNER SWIFT, Memoirs, Privately printed, Worcester, Mass., 1870)-See Appendix. For facts concern- ing Ann Foster, see appendix pp. 20-21.
ELLET, Mrs. ELIZABETH FRIES (LUMMIS) .- The Women of the American Revolution (3 vols., N. Y., Scribner, 1856)-Eulogistic and unreliable. For Dorothy Hancock's reminiscences of Earl Percy see Vol. I, p. 143.
ERNST, GEORGE A. O .- "A Chronology of the Boston Public Schools" (BOSTON : FINANCE COMMISSIONER, Reports, Vol. VII, Boston, 1912)- Page 6 notes the first admission of girls to Boston public schools.
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FORBES, Mrs. HARRIETTE (MERRIFIELD) .- The Hundredth Town. Glimpses of Life in Westborough,. 1717-1817 (Boston, Rockwell and Churchill, 1889)-Contains extracts from the unpublished diary of Anna Sophia Parkman and also the facts of Lady Frankland's romantic life.
HINGHAM, (Mass.) .- History of the Town of Hingham (3 vols. Hingham, 1893) See Vol, I, Part II, p. 88, for first mention in the town's records of a school for girls.
HOLYOKE, Mrs. MARY (VIAL) .- "Diary 1760-1800" (Dow, GEORGE FRANCIS, editor .- The Holyoke Diaries, 1709-1856, Salem, Essex Institute, 1911).
HUDSON, ALFRED SERENO .- The History of Sudbury, Massachusetts. 1638- 1889 (Boston, Blodgett, 1889)-See statement of Mrs. Israel Haynes on pp. 457-460.
HURD, DUANE HAMILTON, editor .- History of Bristol County, Massachu- setts, with Biographical Sketches of many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Phila., Lewis, 1883)-For the movement in Attle- boro towards establishing "women's schools" see p. 557.
HYDE, ALEXANDER .- "Social Life and Customs of the Early Citizens of Berkshire" (Berkshire Historical and Scientific Society, Collections, Vol. III, pp. 27-49, Pittsfield, Mass., 1899)-See pp. 44-45 for the literary tastes of the women.
JAMESON, JOHN FRANKLIN .- The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement (Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press, 1926)-Most valuable for the background of this chapter.
MANN, HERMANN .- The Female Review; or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady; whose Life and Character Are Peculiarly Distinguished -Being a Continental Soldier (Printed for the Author, Dedham, 1797; reprinted as Magazine of History with Notes and Queries, Extra Number 47, Tarrytown, N. Y., 1916)-Recounts the actual experience of Deborah Sampson.
Massachusetts Historical Society .- Proceedings (Boston, 1791 and later) -Most of the volumes contain nuggets of original matter, some of which is used in this chapter.
MOORE, FRANK, editor .- Diary of the American Revolution. From News- papers and Original Documents (2 vols., N. Y., Scribner, 1860)-See Vol. II, p. 101, for a notice of Count d'Estaing's dinner to a group of Bostonians.
MORISON, SAMUEL ELIOT, The Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783- 1860 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1921)-See pp. 21-43 for illuminating points concerning the economic and social background of this chapter.
PERKINS, AUGUSTUS THORNDIKE .- A Sketch of the Life and Some of the Works of John Singleton Copley (Cambridge, Wilson, 1873)-Cop- ley's portraits comprise some of the best sources for the women of the period.
SLAFTER, CARLOS .- A Record of Education. The Schools and Teachers of Dedham, Massachusetts, 1644-1904 (Privately printed, Dedham, 1905)-Throws authentic light on educational facilities for girls in Dedham during the period of this chapter.
STANTON, Mrs. ELIZABETH (CADY), ANTHONY, SUSAN BROWNELL, GAGE, Mrs. MATILDA (JOSLYN), and HARPER, Mrs. IDA (HUSTED), editors .- History of Woman Suffrage (6 vols., Rochester, N. Y., Fowler & Wells, 1881-1922)-Volume I contains an interesting account of the adoption of the first "Declaration of Sentiments."
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WARREN, Mrs. MERCY (OTIS) .- History of the Rise, Progress and Ter- mination of the American Revolution (3 vols. Boston, E. Larkin, 1805).
WARREN, Mrs. MERCY (OTIS) .- Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous (Bos- ton, I. Thomas & E. T. Andrews, 1790).
WARREN, MRS. MERCY (OTIS), and ADAMS, JOHN .- 'Correspondence between John Adams and Mercy Warren Relating to Her "History of the American Revolution" July-August, 1807' (Boston, Massachu- setts Historical Society Collections, 5th Series, Vol. IV, pp. 315-511, 1878)-Edited by Charles Francis Adams. Helpful for an under- standing of Mercy's mind and personality.
WESTON, Records of the First Precinct, 1746-1754, and of . the Town, 1754-1803 (Boston, 1893)-Compiled by Mary Frances Peirce. For vote establishing women's schools, 1768, see p. 148.
WHARTON, ANNE HOLLINGSWORTH .- Colonial Days and Dames (Phila., Lippincott, 1895)-See p. 54 for a quoted record permitting dancing to be taught in Salem in 1739.
WINSLOW, ANNA GREEN .- Diary of Anna Green Winslow, a Boston School Girl of 1771 (Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, 1894)-Edited by Alice Morse Earle. A sparkling human document.
WINSOR, JUSTIN, editor .- Memorial History of Boston (4 vols. Boston, Osgood, 1882-1886)-Volume III, dealing with the Revolutionary period, includes much interesting exact information bearing indirectly upon women.
CHAPTER XII ECONOMIC AND COMMERCIAL CONDITIONS
BY DAVIS RICH DEWEY Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PRE-REVOLUTIONARY FINANCE (1765 - 1773)
War always places a heavy drain upon the finances of a government. This is true of a strong and firmly established government; much more does it apply to a colonial govern- ment, poor in material resources, engaged for years in dis- putes with its sovereign over the principles of taxation. Under these conditions, it was impossible to develop a well-rounded system of finance which could be further extended when more urgent needs arose. Fortunately at the outbreak of the Revolution, the provincial government of Massachusetts was out of debt for the first time since 1690. By strenuous exer- tion the province had extricated itself from the embarrass- ments caused by the paper money issues of the first half of the century. Taxation was likewise reduced, and from an ac- counting point of view, the finances of the Province were in a sound condition.
Economy in governmental administration and the reduc- tion in taxes, however, did not mean that there were abundant resources which could be drawn upon to support heavy ex- penditures, or that the financial system would be serviceable in times of emergency. Economy and low taxes were prompted by the growing desire to thwart the plans of the English government. The General Court refused to levy taxes which might indirectly be used to relieve the home government of expense.
In the earlier part of the century the General Court scrimped the governor's salary; in 1772 the quarrel took a new turn. Governor Hutchinson, in order to assert his in- dependence of the other branches of government, declined to
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accept any salary from the Province, receiving his compensa- tion from the home government. He did demand, however, that his residence, the Province House, be repaired. The General Court, in reply, asserted that if the Governor wished to be independent as to his office, the colony was absolved from any further obligation.
Again in 1773 the Court affirmed its position: "With all the deference due to Parliament, we are humbly of the opinion that, as all human authority is, and ought to be limited, it cannot constitutionally extend its power to the levying of taxes in any form, on the people of this province." Similar disputes arose over the payment of salaries to judges. Thus, as relations between the Province and England became more and more strained, revenue was more grudgingly supplied. In June, 1774, after the passage of the Port Bill in the pre- vious March, by the English Parliament, the General Court authorized the lowest tax levy enacted for twenty years.
ISSUE OF BILLS OF CREDIT (1775)
Owing to these constant bickerings, the Province was ill supplied with immediate sources of revenue, and when the open break came and financial responsibility fell upon the new independent state, it was difficult to devise ways and means for securing financial support. It was natural, there- fore, that the Province should turn to the use of credit, where- by the settlement of obligations was deferred to a future date.
Credit was sought for in two forms: loan notes and bills of credit. In May, 1775, closely following the battles of Lexington and Concord, the new Provincial Congress of Mas- sachusetts authorized a loan of £100,000, bearing six per cent interest, payable in one year. For the taking up of this loan, appeal was made to patriotism; and as the loan notes were issued in denominations as low as £4, they were placed within the reach of patriots with humble means. Such notes, how- ever, when once purchased, being of small denominations, served as a medium of exchange and became a part of the monetary circulation.
Coupled with the issue of loan notes was the issue of £26,000 of bills of credit to be used in payment to soldiers. These
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notes were forced into circulation, whether acceptable to the soldier creditor or not; but the crisis was too urgent to wait for a levy of taxes, even if there had been the possibility of collecting an adequate amount.
Massachusetts had good company in its issue of paper money. Some of the adjoining colonies, as Connecticut and Rhode Island, were already circulating bills of credit before the Revolution began; and in the very month, May, 1775, that Massachusetts authorized its issue, the Continental Congress adopted the same financial policy. Under this central author- ity, $241,553,000 was emitted between 1775 and 1779. Other individual colonies also resorted to this agency of financing ; Virginia issued $128,000,000; the two Carolinas $67,000,000. Compared with these amounts, the less than $4,000,000 issued by Massachusetts was sparing. Even if the Province had been more cautious in reliance upon credit funds, there would have been grave financial difficulties, for Massachusetts could not relieve herself of the embarrassment of Continental paper money. It circulated alongside the state bills; and in the emission of its bills, the Continental Congress assigned to each colony a certain definite proportion to be "sunk" or liquidated by the several colonies, according to their popula- tion. The medium of exchange was thus swollen by a mix- ture of Continental and state notes.
The first issues of the Province were quickly exhausted, and in August, 1775, another emission of £100,000 was made. The stirring phrase, "Issued in defence of American liberty," was printed upon the notes. For a brief period the new cur- rency was accepted on a par with specie, but the public con- fidence faltered as issues poured in from the Continental Congress as well as from the signers of colonial notes in Boston.
DEPRECIATION OF CONTINENTAL CURRENCY (1775 - 1781)
Although Massachusetts was in part responsible for the issue of irredeemable paper money, the colonial government was helpless as long as continental currency flooded the state. Prices continued to soar. Beef in 1777 was 4d. per pound ; three years later, in 1780, it was 8sh. 9d. (169d), an advance of more than forty fold. The price of Indian corn rose from
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4sh. to £8 per bushel, and wool from 3sh. to £3 per pound. There was little that a single state could do unless the con- tinental government changed its policy.
In 1780 Congress finally recognized the depreciation of its notes and made provision for the acceptance of paper in place of specie at the rate of 40 to 1. A tax of $15,000,000 a month was laid upon the states for thirteen months, to be paid in bills of the previous emissions; and these in turn were to be destroyed and replaced by a new issue not exceeding one- twentieth of the face value of the old. Nearly $120,000,000 were thus paid in by the states and destroyed; and of the new notes only $4,400,000 were issued.
The remedy, however, came too late. There were still mil- lions in continental notes in circulation, and as yet no evidence that those in circulation would be redeemed. Within a year the notes were exchangeable for specie at the rate of 100 to 1, and soon they ceased to pass as currency at any ratio of exchange. Occasionally they were bought and sold for specu- lation, but not even a speculator would take much risk. In the diary of Deacon Buckminster this, as late as 1790, ap- pears : "Sold 2,710 old Continental dollars for 2s. 9d. per 100. Total £-13. 14. 4." The new tenor notes, though limited in amount, were also regarded with suspicion and circulated at a rate of 4 to 1 for specie.
The chief sufferers from this depreciation were salaried men and soldiers. Ministers, who, as a class, were among the most loyal supporters of the Revolution, were frequently aided by town votes, assessing the minister's tax on a specie basis. For example, that $75. of paper money be reckoned as $1. worth of silver.
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