Life in the Colonies

Chapter 4

Section 5

Colonial Society

• More social equality than in England

• Status determined by birth or wealth

– Gentry- top of the class structure

– Wealthy planters, merchants, royal officials, ministers, and successful

lawyers

– Middle Class- included: farmers that worked their own land, skilled
craft workers, and trades people.

– ¾ of colonists belonged in this class

• Indentured servants- workers that agreed to work the land for a period of
time for no pay in return they would get passage to America.

• Females could cut down their time as Indentured servants by marrying

• 1000’s of people came to America this way and worked their way into the
“middle class”

• Women’s work in the Colonies

– City women

• Took care of the home

• Cooked, cleaned, milked the cows, took care of children and

made clothing

• Sometimes worked outside the home

– Country Women

• Worked the fields with husband

• Harvesting was “women’s work”

• Hunt

• Raise livestock
 • Women who worked outside the home

– Nurses, midwives, seamstresses, butchers, cook, or printers

– Learned from husband, father, or brother

– A woman could take over a business if her husband died

• African Cultural Influences

– Language and growing techniques varied depending on where the

slaves came from

– Many of the fine crafts Africans made in the cities varied as well. Ex-
ropes, barrels, plates

• Great Awakening

– A religious movement

– 1730’s-1740’s

– All classes effected

• Jonathan Edwards was the father of the movement

• From New England

• A reintroduction to God and his wrath and grace

• 1739 George Whitefield arrived from England and continued to advance the
movement

• Impact of the Great Awakening

– New churches were formed

– Forces even greater religious tolerance

– Spread democratic feelings

– Formal religious training less important than “a heart filled with the
Holy Spirit”

– Encouraged independence

– Challenge authority when liberty was at stake

Self governance

• Education in the Colonies

 – New England

• Towns with 50 or more people were required to hire a school

teacher

• Children needed to be taught to “read and understand the

principals of religion”

• Massachusetts established the first public school

• Middle and Southern Colonies

– Private schools established by churches and individual families

– Only wealthy kids got educated because families had to pay

– Tutors also used for families that lived too far out to go to a school

– Some families sent kids back to England to be educated

• Apprenticeships and Dame Schools

– Apprentice- works for a master to learn a trade or craft

– Started when a boy was 12 or 13

– Apprentice would live with master for the 6 or 7 years they were in
apprenticeship

– No pay

• Dame School

– Private school run by women in their homes

– For girls

– Taught them to spin, weave, and read and write

• Spread of Ideas

– Many laws of nature discovered during 1600’s

– Newton

– Enlightenment Spreads

– Reason and scientific method could explain society

– Natural laws that governed human behavior

 – John Locke- English philosopher- said people gain knowledge by
observing and experimenting

• Ben Franklin

– Son of a soap and candle maker

– Started a printing press business at 17

– Wanted to use reason to improve the world around him

– Colonial Cities

• Centers of trade between coast and backcountry

• Way to spread culture