Project Gutenberg's Woman's Life in Colonial Days, by Carl Holliday

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Title: Woman's Life in Colonial Days

Author: Carl Holliday

Release Date: March 28, 2005 [EBook #15488]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's Note: In the original text, some footnotes were referenced
more than once in the text. For clarity, these references have had a
letter added to the number, for example, 26a.]

WOMAN'S LIFE IN COLONIAL DAYS

CARL HOLLIDAY

_Professor of English_
_San Jose State College, California_

AUTHOR OF

THE WIT AND HUMOR OF COLONIAL DAYS, ENGLISH FICTION FROM THE FIFTH
TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, A HISTORY OF SOUTHERN LITERATURE, THE
WRITINGS OF COLONIAL VIRGINIA, THE CAVALIER POETS, THREE CENTURIES
OF SOUTHERN POETRY, ETC.

CORNER HOUSE PUBLISHERS
WILLIAMSTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS

_First Printed in 1922_
_Reprinted in 1968_
_by_
CORNER HOUSE PUBLISHERS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE

This book is an attempt to portray by means of the writings of colonial
days the life of the women of that period,--how they lived, what their
work and their play, what and how they thought and felt, their strength
and their weakness, the joys and the sorrows of their everyday
existence. Through such an attempt perhaps we can more nearly understand
how and why the American woman is what she is to-day.

For a long time to come, one of the principal reasons for the study of
the writings of America will lie, not in their intrinsic merit alone,
but in their revelations of American life, ideals, aspirations, and
social and intellectual endeavors. We Americans need what Professor
Shorey has called "the controlling consciousness of tradition." We have
not sufficiently regarded the bond that connects our present
institutions with their origins in the days of our forefathers. That is
one of the main purposes of this study, and the author believes that
through contributions of such a character h