Show notes
Above is a page from the 1790 First Federal Census that lists the heads of house for residents on Elfreth's Alley beginning with house #28 - #26. Other census data included profession or occupation, whether the house was a dwelling or shop, and the number of free white men and women, and the number of enslaved people living in the house. Episode 2: Spinsters, Runaway Wives, and Widows Elfreth's Alley Museum Download Last week, we talked about three dressmakers who lived on Elfreth’s Alley from the mid-eighteenth century into the early nineteenth century. We learned that Mary Smith, Sarah Melton, and Elizabeth Carr were all examples of women who spent some or all of their adult lives in couples with other women, rather than with men, and we explored the possibilities of their professional and personal lives together. Today on the Alley Cast, we are going to explore the economic and social circumstances of the other female-headed households on Elfreth’s Alley from 1785 to 1820 and consider what brought these women here and how the Alley shaped their lives. FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS SOURCES BELOW In this cropped version of image above, you can see that Elizabeth Chandler, Sarah "Mertoon" and Barbary Dominick, are three of the single women who lived on the Alley in 1790. Their occupations are all listed as 'spinster', a term for an unmarried woman, but they would have had to work to sustain themselves. Note that Sarah's name is spelled Mertoon here, as opposed to Milton or Melton, which we see in other records. Variant spellings were common at the time, but her continued residence at #24 makes it easier to determine that Mertoon and Melton were the same woman. Full BibliographyPrimary SourcesConstable Returns, 1775, Philadelphia City Archives, Philadelphia, PA.Mary Smith and Sarah Melton Deed, Deed Book I, 1, 429, Philadelphia City Archives, Philadelphia, PA.Mary Smith Will, 1766, 286, (Book N, 525), Philadelphia Register of Wills, Philadelphia City Archives, City Hall Annex, Philadelphia, PA."Pennsylvania Births and Christenings, 1709-1950." Database. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org. Index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City."Pennsylvania Cemetery Records, ca. 1700-ca. 1950." Database. FamilySearch. https://FamilySearch.org. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Family History Department."Pennsylvania Deaths and Burials, 1720-1999." Database. FamilySearch. https://FamilySearch.org. Index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City."Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915." Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org. Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia."Pennsylvania Marriages, 1709-1940." Database. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org. Index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City.Philadelphia Contributionship, “Philadelphia Contributionship Survey #736: A House and Kitchen Belonging to Mary Smith,” 1762, Elfreth’s Alley Association Records Collection, Philadelphia, PA.Sarah Melton Will, 1974, 104, (Book X, 152), Philadelphia Register of Wills, Philadelphia City Archives, City Hall Annex, Philadelphia, PA.The Philadelphia Directory, 1785, 1791, 1793-1795, 1797-1810, 1813-1814, Philadelphia City Archives, Philadelphia, PA."United States Census, 1790. "Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org. Citing NARA microfilm publication M637. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d."United States Census, 1800." Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org. Citing NARA microfilm publication M32. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d."United States Census, 1810." Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org. Citing NARA microfilm publication M252. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d."United States Census, 1820." Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org. Citing NARA microfilm publication M33. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.Secondary SourcesChambers-Schiller, Lee Virginia. Liberty A Better Husband: Single Women in America: The Generations of 1780-1840. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.Godbeer, Richard. Sexual Revolution in Early America. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.Kann, Mark. Taming Passion for the Public Good: Policing Sex in the Early Republic. New York: New York University, 2013.Klepp, Susan. Philadelphia in Transition: A Demographic History of the City and Its Occupational Groups, 1720-1830. A Garland Series. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1989.Lyons, Clare. Sex Among the Rabble: An Intimate History of Gender and Power in the Age of Revolution, Philadelphia, 1730-1830. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.Shammas, Carole. “The Female Social Structure of Philadelphia in 1775.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 107, no. 1 (1983): 69–83. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20091740.Smith, Billy. The “Lower Sort”: Philadelphia’s Laboring People, 1750-1800. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.Smith, Merril. Breaking the Bonds: Marital Discord in Pennsylvania: 1730-1830. New York: New York University Press, 1991.Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America.” Signs 1, no. 1 (1975): 1–29. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172964.Stabile, Susan. Memory’s Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-Century America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.Wulf, Karin. Not All Wives: Women of Colonial Philadelphia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000.TRANSCRIPTIsabel Steven:Mary Smith, spinster, mantua maker, 1762-1766. Sarah Melton, widow, spinster, mantua maker, 1762-1798. Hannah Hodgson, 1785. Jane Hill, 1785. Anne Ireland, 1785. Elizabeth Collins, widow, 1785-1791. Elizabeth Chandler, spinster, 1790. Barbary. Dominick, spinster, 1790. Christian Tweed, widow, 1790. Ann Anderson, widow, 1790-1804. Mary Gray, widow, schoolmistress, 1790-1805. Mary Hunter, Spinster, 1790-1791. Sara Bradnax, Schoolmistress, 1790-1791. Catherine McLeod, widow, boarding house, 1793-1797. Ann Bliss, widow, 1793. Mary Cowain, 1793. Elizabeth W. Brunston, widow, gentlewoman, 1794-1795. Rebecca Jones, 1794. Mary Wilson, widow, boarding house, 1795-1797. Rebecca King, widow, tailoress, 1796. Rachel Elfreth, widow, gentlewoman, 1795-1803. Elizabeth Carr, mantua maker, widow, 1790-1813. Marianne Faure, gentlewoman, French lady, 1795-1796 .Christian Peachin, widow, 1785-1831. Susannah Hill, mantua maker, 1790-1809 .Sarah Taylor, seamstress, 1800-1801. Ann Taylor, widow, boarding house, 1795-1810. Hannah Gillaspie, mantua maker, 1802. Madam Baeu, gentlewoman, widow, 1801-1804. Madam Vaughan, 1802-1806. Rebecca Price, teacheress, 1802-1807. Ann Hoffner, widow, 1807. Catherine Catherall, widow, 1807. Mary Thomas, gentlewoman, 1807. Mary McKinney, boarding house, 1807. Mrs. Vockason, nurse, 1809. Margaret Fry, huckster, 1810. Magdeline Orell, shoemaker, 1810. Elizabeth Levy, fuel clarifier, 1810. Rebecca Wells, lady, 1810. Amy Stackhouse, seamstress, 1810. Ann Lemaire, lady, 1810. Mary Hillman, boarding house, 1809-1810. Mary Tatum, gentlewoman. Hannah Catherall, widow, lady, 1810-1813. Mary Clampffer, widow, 1810-1813. Rebecca Ferguson, widow, shopkeeper, 1813-1841. Eliza McCollum, mantua maker, 1813. Margaret Maag, tailoress, 1813. Ann James, widow, 1813. Hannah Newton, mantua maker, seamstress, 1810-1813. Margaret Peddle, widow, lady, 1810-1813.These are the names of the 60 women who appear in City Directories and United States Censuses as the legal heads of households on Elfreth’s Alley between roughly 1790 to 1813. Representing 20-30% of the street's residents, some only lived here for a year or two, others decades. Yet collectively, these women illustrate the opportunities and challenges of life for single women in Early Republic Philadelphia. Ted Maust:Welcome to The Alley Cast, a new podcast from the Elfreth’s Alley Museum in Philadelphia. We tell the stories of people who lived or worked on this street which has been home to everyday Philadelphians for three centuries. And while we start in this neighborhood, we will explore connections that will take us across the city and around the globe.Last week, we talked about three dressmakers who lived on Elfreth’s Alley from the mid-eighteenth century into the early nineteenth century. We learned that Mary Smith, Sarah Melton, and Elizabeth Carr were all examples of women who spent some or all of their adult lives in couples with other women, rather than with men, and explored the possibilities of their professional and personal lives together. Today on the Alley Cast, we are going to explore the economic and social circumstances of the other female-headed households on Elfreth’s Alley from 1785 to 1820 and consider what brought these women here and how the Alley shaped their lives. Isabel Steven:For at least the year of 1790, Sarah Melton and Elizabeth Carr had neighbors to either side of them who were spinsters, too. Elizabeth Chandler lived at No. 23 and at No. 25, Barbary Dominick. Further down the street another spinster, Mary Hunter, made her home at No. 17. We don’t know much about these women, except for the information contained in the 1790 United States Census, which was the first time it was taken. Chandler and Hunter each had a boy younger than sixteen years old living with them, presumably their sons. The census also listed how many “free white females, including head” were living at the home, and so while we don’t know the specific ages, all three women had multiple girls or other women living there, too. It may be that Chandler, Hunter, and Dominick all had children by men to whom they were not married. That they only appeared to stay on the Alley for the one year indicates that work and financial circumstances prompted them to move again looking for more affordable accommodations. Or perhaps they married, and thus disappeared as heads of households, now included in their husbands’ households instead. What is clear, however, is that the difficulty in tracing these women’s lives is due to the economic, legal, and social realities that dictated their lives.Of all the social and legal roles available to women during this time, only a minority of adult women were ever able to become the legal head of their own household. This could only happen if she were a feme sole. This term was a legal definition that designated a woman who had either never married, was widowed, or legally divorced. Roughly 20-30% of households were headed by women at any one point in time in late 18th century Philadelphia. The residential patterns of Elfreth’s Alley match those percentages almost exactly decade to decade. In 1790, out of the 31 heads of house on the street, 32% were women. At the turn of the century, it was 21% of the 28 residents, and a decade later, women accounted for 33% of the 45 residents. In certain ways, a feme sole had more opportunities: she could inherit, buy and sell property, conduct business in her own name, and appear in court. But in many other ways, her life was more limited and more difficult. As we talked about in the previous episode, only a small set of occupations were available to women and all of them paid low wages, typically half the amount a man would make for the same work, which made her economic circumstances often precarious. Moreover, a woman was not expected to be conducting business and acting in the public on her own. Instead, society expected a woman to have a husband to do these things for her, to protect her from the burdens of business and public life. How Mary Hunter, Elizabeth Chandler and Barbary Dominick may have actually felt about being single women we can unfortunately leave only to speculation. Perhaps they wished for a husband to offer financial security and protection from public activity, or perhaps they had no desire at all for one, and preferred the greater legal freedom her feme sole status granted her.But if a woman was not the head of a household (or married), what role did she fill? Most commonly, adult daughters lived with one or both of their parents, or she moved into her sibling’s household. Women might also be lodgers, renting a room from individuals like Catherine McLeod, Mary Wilson, Ann Taylor and Mary McKinney who ran boarding houses on the Alley. Women who were of lower economic standing might join a household working as a servant, maid, or cook. And many more enslaved African American women had no choice at all, forced to work and were counted as part of their enslaver's household. The confluence of economic, social, and cultural factors enabled the diversity of women’s roles, and the relatively high numbers of single women living in Philadelphia during this time. First, female self-reliance was economically tenable within an urban environment, due to the abundance of work, flexibility of living arrangements, and size of the population. Second, it was somewhat socially tolerated due to the ethnic and religious diversity of Philadelphia. Third, the changing demographic landscape of Philadelphia created a much less coherent or rigid culture of gender norms than might commonly be assumed, enabling women to navigate around their prescribed roles in various ways. Finally, the cultural scene within Philadelphia saw a burgeoning literary world whose writers included women, and growing educational opportunities for women meant an increase in conversation and debate around the roles of women, singleness, and the realities and challenges of courting and marriage. Act II: Marriage and SeparationDespite a limited tolerance for female singlehood, most women married. Not only was marriage the most reliable form of economic stability for women, and socially and culturally expected, it defined her legal and relational status. Marriage in early America retained a legal principle from English Common Law, called coverture, which essentially forged the married couple into one legal entity under which a woman no longer retained any legal identity separate from her husband. Although she could run the household, she was not its legal head. All her property was conferred to her husband, and only he could inherit, buy or sell property, conduct business, make contracts, and appear in court to represent her. However, women were rarely married their entire adult life. The death of her husband may have been the most common circumstance by which women returned to single life, but it was not the only one. Self divorce and after 1785, legal divorce were not uncommon in late eighteenth-century Philadelphia. The 1785 Divorce Act established certain policies for the separating couple, including distinctions between absolute divorce and divorce from bed and board (in other words, a legal separation). Absolute divorce provided a clean economic break and the ability for both men and women to remarry legally. For women, an absolute divorce was even more significant, because she became a feme sole. A divorce from bed and board, on the other hand, meant that the woman could not remarry, but could apply for alimony. Some women probably enjoyed the greater freedom from her husband and feme sole status that an absolute divorce granted her, while others probably found the alimony a necessity for surviving on her own and supporting any children she had.Despite divorce being legal by 1785, most couples separated informally, rather than going through a lengthy and difficult court process that might deny them the divorce they wanted. Such informal separation was somewhat accepted socially and acknowled…
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