History of women in the United States

This is a history of women in the United States since 1776, and of the Thirteen Colonies before that. The reliable sources on the topic were thin before the 1960s. Since then the study of women's history has been a major scholarly and popular field, with many scholarly books and articles, museum exhibits, and courses in schools and universities. The roles of women were long ignored in textbooks and popular histories. By the 1960s, women were being presented as successful as male roles. An early feminist approach underscored their victimization and inferior status at the hands of men. In the 21st century writers have emphasized the distinctive strengths displayed inside the community of women, with special concern for minorities among women.

The experiences of women during the colonial era varied somewhat from colony to colony, but there were some overall patterns. Most of the British settlers were from England and Wales, with smaller numbers from Scotland and Ireland. Groups of families settled in New England, while individuals came to the Southern colonies. The American colonies absorbed the thousands of Dutch and Swedish settlers. After 1700 most immigrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured servants—young unmarried men and women seeking a new life in a much richer environment. After the 1660s a steady flow of black slaves arrived, chiefly from the Caribbean. Food supplies were much more abundant than in Europe, and there was an abundance of fertile land that needed farm families. However, the disease environment was hostile in the malaria-ridden South, where a large portion of the arrivals died within five years. The American-born children were immune from the fatal forms of malaria.

In New England, the Puritan settlers from England brought their strong religious values highly organized social structure with them. They believed a woman should be subordinate to her husband and dedicate herself to rearing God-fearing children to the best of her ability.

There were ethnic differences in the treatment of women. Among Puritan settlers in New England, wives almost never worked in the fields with their husbands. In German communities in Pennsylvania, however, many women worked in fields and stables. German and Dutch immigrants granted women more control over property, which was not permitted in the local English law. Unlike English colonial wives, German and Dutch wives owned their own clothes and other items and were also given the ability to write wills disposing of the property brought into the marriage.

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