BILINGUAL EDUCATION UNIT

“LICEO ALBONOR”

STUDY GUIDE
Subject: History

Grade: 1st Baccalaureate

Teacher: Eric Jimenez, B.A.

Student’s name: ___________________

2022-2023
CLASS N° 2
UNIT N° One
TOPIC Women in Colonial America

OBJECTIVES To learn the importance of women’s role in American Sociaety.

Topic Development:

Women in Colonial America (1492)

Colonial America (1492-1763) European nations came to the Americas to increase their wealth and
broaden their influence over world affairs.

Women in 17th Century America

Though we often focus on the role of

men during the Colonial Era, the
colonies would have failed without
women's bravery and hard work as well.
In Colonial America, women did not
have the same rights as they enjoy
today, but they still played an essential
role in founding America.

Imagine leaving your hometown, your

friends, and much of your family to
voyage across an ocean for two months
in order to land in the wilderness of a
new continent in the hopes of making a
new life. On the journey itself, you risk
shipwreck and contracting a disease. When you get
to your destination, there are no stores, farms, or
homes. You must make everything from scratch,
and you have to be ready for potential attacks from
neighboring Native Americans. This is exactly the
situation that women (and men) faced in early
Colonial America.

The 17th century was an age of uncertainty and

adventure, and the women in 17th century America
who made the journey had to be resilient, hard-working, and incredibly brave in order to survive.
This meant that both men and women had to work together in order to eke out a living in the
colonies.

As a result, gender roles were actually rather fluid early on. Some colonies, like Jamestown, were
initially founded by men, which meant that Jamestown couldn't grow as a colony until women
arrived. Both men and women would farm, construct buildings, tend to the house, and raise
children. In addition, women would work as nurses, midwives, and even itinerant preachers. Some
women even began their lives in Colonial America as indentured servants, meaning they were
provided free passage to the colonies in exchange for several years of work in the fields or
elsewhere. Land was easily available in Colonial America, and even women could work towards
purchasing land-- a privilege they would not likely enjoy in Europe.

As the 17th century continued, families grew and children were born, but things were not always
easy. Young women were often pregnant, partly because so many young children were lost to
sickness or lack of resources and partly because of a dire need to populate the colonies. Likewise,
spouses would often die, meaning that men and women would often remarry. Marriages and
families were thus often formed out of necessity rather than love. Nevertheless, the family was
truly the foundation to these colonies, and the family structure became a microcosm of colonial life
in general.

Women in 18th Century America

By the 18th century, the colonies in America

became well-established and the population
exploded. As the colonies became more
established, so did typical gender roles. 18th
century America became more of a
patriarchal system, where men were
acknowledged as the formal heads of the
household and held most social and political
power. In contrast, women in 18th century
America were generally relegated to the
private sphere where they were expected to
run the household, weave, cook, and teach
children morals and spirituality. In general,
women were still not formally educated, and
they did not enjoy the same freedoms and
social power as men. They were not always
looked down on, however, and in fact
women were often admired and praised for
being spiritually virtuous and strong
caregivers.

Some women did, in fact, own businesses or

work alongside their husbands as
blacksmiths or tanners. The slave
population also exploded in the 18th
century, and Southern wives of plantation
owners had the added task of managing plantation affairs. In addition, as the American
Revolutionary War drew near, many women helped to propagate the patriotic spirit by managing
boycotts of British goods and encouraging fellow women to create homemade American goods to
replace British goods.

Video 2’ 56”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y3JQ192Ins