on, of at least a
percentage of the colonial women, but the statements above should be
sufficient to prove that religious affairs were not wholly left to the
guidance of men. And what of women's originality and daring in other
fields of activity? The indications are that they even ventured, and
that successfully, to dabble in the affairs of state. Sewall mentions
that the women were even urged by the men to expostulate with the
governor about his plans for attending a certain meeting house at
certain hours, and that after the good sisters had thus paved the way a
delegation of men went to his Excellency, and obtained a change in his
plan. Thus, the women did the work, and the men usurped the praise.
Again, Lady Phips, wife of the governor, had the bravery to assume the
responsibility of signing a warrant liberating a prisoner accused of
witchcraft, and, though the jailer lost his position for obeying, the
prisoner's life was thus saved by the initiative of a woman.

That colonial women frequently attempted to make a livelihood by methods
other than keeping a dame school, is shown in numerous diaries and
records. Sewall records the failure of one of these attempts: "April 4,
1690.... This day Mrs. Avery's Shop ... shut by reason of Goods in them
attached."[300] Women kept ordinaries and taverns, especially in New
England, and after 1760 a large number of the retail dry goods stores of
Baltimore were owned and managed by women. We have noticed elsewhere
Franklin's complimentary statement about the Philadelphia woman who
conducted her husband's printing business after his death; and again in
a letter to his wife, May 27, 1757, just before a trip to Europe, he
writes: "Mr. Golden could not spare his Daughter, as she helps him in
the Postoffice, he having no Clerk."[301] Mrs. Franklin, herself, was a
woman of considerable business ability, and successfully ran her
husband's printing and trading affairs during his prolonged absences. He
sometimes mentions in his letters her transactions amounting at various
times to as much as L500.

The pay given to teachers of dame schools was so miserably low that it
is a marvel that the widows and elderly spinsters who maintained these
institutions could keep body and soul together on such fees. We know
that Boston women sometimes taught for less than a shilling per day,
while even those ladies who took children from the South and the West
Indies into their homes and both boarded and tra