Life

1
Life Times

• Colonial America on the Eve of the Revolution

2
Society

• Highly stratified society
• Small, independent farmers40 of population
• Northern colonies wealthiest 10 owned 45 of
  land
• Southern colonies wealthiest 10 owned 75 of
  the land
• People of mixed national origins (English, Irish,
  Scottish, Dutch, Swedish) beliefs
• Society made up of freemen, indentured servants,
  and slaves

3
Education

• Early education
• Idea of public education began in colonies
• 1647 Massachusetts passed tax-supported school
  law for towns w/50 families
• Most southern families of means hired private
  tutors
• By 1745, three colleges in North America by
  1776, six more
• For most students, school ended at age 10-12

4
Education

• Schools
• 1 room log building w/greased paper windows,
  few books, no blackboards, little paper, few
  maps, dunce stool in corner
• Students used goose quill pens/made ink by
  boiling down washed walnut or butternut hulls
  adding vinegar salt

5
Education Schools

• Textbooks teaching methods
• Bible often the only book in homes
• Hornbooks wooden paddles with the alphabet and
  sometimes the Lords Prayer written on them,
  covered w/a thin layer of horn
• New England Primer first widely used standard
  text taught reading, writing, arithmetic, moral
  lessons along w/the alphabet
• Ex. For the letter d A dog will bite a thief
  at night. and a picture showing it.

6
Education Schools/Teachers

• Memorization by the blab method short
  sentences recited aloud in unisonvery
  noisy/various age groups working on different
  lessons
• Teachers
• Always male, dressed in waistcoat, ruffled shirt,
  powdered wig
• Sat at high wooden deskwith hickory stick handy!
  (N.E. Primer The idle fool is whipped at
  school.)

7
Education Lessons

• Schools were not co-ed
• Boys apprenticed to trade or learned farming
  after finishing school
• Some went on to grammar school (college) and
  studied Latin for professions in medicine, law,
  ministry

8
Education Lessons

• Girls spent about 3 years in school to learn to
  read (not believed capable of further studies)
• Girls rarely admitted to grammar school
  sometimes to private academies called Dame
  Schools to learn domestic arts w/social arts,
  e.g. music, dancing, drawing, French, flower
  arranging

9
Recreation

• Popular pastimes dancing, fishing, skating,
  sleigh riding, card playing, badminton, attending
  country fairs
• Gender-based activities
• Women did needlework/quilting, read, played
  musical instruments
• Men had competitions wrestling, horse foot
  races, whistling contests

10
Appearance

• Mens clothing - Upper Classes
• Frock coat, vest, knee britches, silk stockings
  to knee, buckled shoes, hat, ornamental buttons
  (brass, pearl, etc.), rings w/family seal,
  earrings
• Powdered wigs w/hair cut short beneathor long
  hair tied back (Clubbed)

11
Appearance Upper Class Men

• Fancy dress cocked hats w/gold lace, red vests
  w/lace, lace-trimmed ruffles at coat sleeves
  (long ruffles hanging over the hand were a sign
  of gentility/wealth), cuffs weighted to hang
  properly

12
Appearance

• Mens clothing - The Lesser Classes
• Working mens styles were similar to those of the
  upper classes fabrics differed linsey wool
  (linen/wool combo), cotton shirts, woolen
  stockings
• Frontier men leather hunting shirts down to
  thigh w/leggings moccasins

13
Appearance Womens Clothing

• Womens Clothing Upper Classes
• Long dresses w/hooped skirts stiffened
  w/whalebonesome formal gowns had hoops six feet
  wide! (consider having to get into coaches
  sitting beside a similarly dressed woman)
• Small waists were fashionable (14-18) tight
  corsets used to reach ideal waist

14
Appearance Womens Clothing

• Low necklines for evening wear
• High-heeled shoes--often wooden clogs on iron
  platforms to keep them out of mud
• Tower hairdos for special occasions long hair
  frizzed with curling irons, piled up in front
  over wool pads into mountains of curls and puffs
  greased w/pomade and powderedcovered w/large
  wire framework from which hung false curls, lace,
  ribbons, beads, jewels, and feathers

15
Appearance Womens Clothing

• Womens Clothing the lesser classes
• Simple, long dress, long hair braided or in a bun
  tucked under a mobcap, sunbonnet or parasol if
  outdoors
• Fabrics differentiated class rather than style in
  everyday dress

16
Love, Courtship Marriage

• General information
• In most colonies, men outnumbered women
• The New World offered more freedom for courtship
  than did the Old Worldespecially for upper class
  women

17
Love, Courtship Marriage

• Bachelorhood frowned upon early marriages
  encouraged some girls in the lesser classes
  married at 13, most 18
• An unmarried woman of 25 was considered an
  ancient maid!
• Arranged marriages were the norm parental
  approval needed for courtshipmen subject to
  fine/public whipping if he didnt get it!

18
Love, Courtship Marriage

• Courtship
• Among the upper classes
• Daughters entertained suitors in family
  parlor-usually w/whole family
• Some privacy by using a whispering roda long
  hollow tube to whisper sweet nothings!
• Among the lesser classes
• Suitor might be invited to spend the night once
  parent sure of marriage
• Bundling board down middle of bed to ensure
  propriety, but no real problem if board wasnt in
  place the next morning

19
Love, Courtship Marriage

• Marriage
• Dowries/money arrangements published
• Wife and her property became husbands
• Husbands also assumed wives debts
• Church and law disapproved of disorderly
  marriage (living together before marriage
• Divorce prohibited, except in MA and CT

20
Health

• Life expectancy
• 2/3 of children died before age 2
• At birth, expectancy was 35 years
• For those who survived past the age of ten, 54-56
  years

21
Health

• Medicine
• During colonial period, about 3500 doctors in
  America
• 400 had any formal training
• 200 had medical degrees
• Treatments often worse than illness
• Bleeding (nick veins/use leeches)
• Purging w/laxatives
• Drugs Opium, mercury, herbs

22
Crime Punishment

• Puritan idea of public humiliation
• Minor offences brought time in the stocks
• Quarrelsome women could be cooled down on the
  ducking stool

23
Crime Punishment

• Real Punishments for Real Crimes
• Blasphemy Tongue in cleft stick
• Other crimes (eg. Theft) warranted hands/ears cut
  off, branding, whipping
• Serious crimes warranted execution, usually by
  hanging