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Women, Law, and the Credit Economy in New England, 1730-1790

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Women, Law, and the Credit Economy in New England, 1730-1790 GENDERING THE WORK OF DEBT COLLECTION: WOMEN, LAW, AND THE CREDIT ECONOMY IN NEW ENGLAND, 1730-1790 by Sara T. Damiano A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland September, 2015 © 2015 Sara T. Damiano All Rights Reserved Abstract “Gendering the Work of Debt Collection” analyzes women, gender, and the credit-based economies of New England’s largest Atlantic ports, Boston and Newport, and their hinterlands between 1730 and 1790. Examining women’s involvement in matters of credit and debt inside and outside of court and comparing their activities to men’s, it argues that women, both married and unmarried, were active, skilled users of credit and debt throughout this period. It also contends that, as participants in financial matters, women exercised considerable social and legal authority over others, including men. This authority was situational, shaped by the immediate context of transactions as well as by gender and class. This dissertation combines quantitative and qualitative analysis of county court records with research in petitions, personal papers, newspapers, and printed treatises and handbooks. Prior scholarship on women, credit and the law has focused on legal disputes and the courtroom; this is the first major study to reconstruct routine credit transactions outside the courts. Credit and debt led women to interact with men in a wide range of urban settings, including households and public places such as streets, retail shops, taverns, and courthouses. Women demonstrated significant financial and legal skill as they negotiated with creditors and debtors, handled sophisticated documents, oversaw attorneys, acted as financial agents for their husbands and others, served as estate administrators, and, as witnesses, made sense of others’ transactions. They generally used the same language as men to discuss their activities, invoking gendered language of women’s vulnerability and economic ignorance infrequently and for strategic ends. ii . Major port cities like Boston and Newport were vanguards of commercial and legal change and favorable places for women’s participation in the credit economy and the courts. Unlike in the agrarian towns and secondary ports previously studied by historians of gender and the law, in Boston and Newport women’s involvement in the credit economy inside and outside the courtroom remained robust throughout the eighteenth century. The developing eighteenth-century commercial economy and the courts were not firmly marked as masculine domains and remained realms in which women could exercise authority over men. Advisors: Toby L. Ditz Department of History Philip D. Morgan Department of History Readers: Mary P. Ryan Department of History Mary E. Fissell Department of the History of Medicine Andrew J. Cherlin Department of Sociology iii Acknowledgments Countless people have helped me reach the finish line of the marathon that is writing a dissertation, and I am deeply grateful for their support, friendship, and mentorship. I first became interested in gender and the law when I was an undergraduate at Brown University. Seth Rockman introduced me to early American social history, and Michael Vorenberg patiently guided me in the writing of my senior thesis. My most significant debt is to my advisors, Toby Ditz and Philip Morgan. Toby and Phil have been engaged interlocutors, careful readers, and discerning editors ever since I began work on this project. I am a better historian and writer thanks to their efforts. Mary Fissell, Mary Ryan, and Judith Walkowitz’s encouragement and probing questions have sharpened my analysis of women and gender, and John Marshall was a helpful guide to scholarship on early modern economies. I also benefitted from the intellectual generosity of many scholars who discussed or commented on my work. Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor shared her work-in-progress with me, and conversations with her reinvigorated my enthusiasm for this project and yielded new lines of inquiry to pursue. Conversations with Mary Bilder, Jonathan Chu, Deborah Cohen, Cornelia Dayton, C. Dallett Hemphill, Carolyn Eastman, Sally Hadden, Cathy Matson, Simon Middleton, and Serena Zabin also shaped my research and analysis. Margaret Hunt, Sarah Knott, Cathy Matson, and Mary Beth Sievens commented on conference papers that became portions of this dissertation. My friends and colleagues have also served as sounding boards, editors, and cheerleaders. Participants in the Atlantic History Workshop and Gender History iv Workshops at Johns Hopkins read every chapter of this dissertation. Their questions and suggestions significantly improved the final product. My colleagues at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies in 2013-2014 helped me to clarify my arguments and explore connections with other fields. I am especially grateful for the camaraderie of good friends at Johns Hopkins and beyond, including Sarah Adelman, Norah Andrews, Will Brown, Claire Cage, Jessica Clark, Steph Gamble, Rob Gamble, Claire Gherini, Katie Hemphill, Katie Hindmarch-Watson, Ren Pepitone, Nick Radburn, David Schley, Katherine Smoak, Joshua Specht, Joshua Segal, Chris Tozzi, and Jessica Valdez. Pippa Koch, Mairin Odle, and Lindsay Van Tine provided solidarity during the final stages of writing. Advice from Joseph Adelman, Katie Jorgenson-Gray, James Roberts, Jessica Roney, and Molly Warsh was essential for navigating all stages of graduate school. Librarians and archivists provided access to the sources and offered helpful advice. Thanks especially to Andrew Smith at the Rhode Island Supreme Court Judicial Records Center and Elizabeth Bouvier at the Massachusetts State Archives for entertaining my countless requests for case files. At the Rhode Island State Archives, Gwen Stern and Kenneth Carlson oriented me in the Rhode Island’s legislative records when I was a wide-eyed undergraduate. Martha Clark offered similar assistance at the Massachusetts State Archives. Connie King and James Green at the Library Company of Philadelphia, Bert Lippincott at the Newport Historical Society, and Kathy Ludwig at the David Library of the American Revolution, and Peter Drummey and Conrad Wright at the Massachusetts Historical Society introduced me to documents and collections that I would not have found otherwise. v Several institutions provided financial support needed for the completion of this project. Thanks to the American Historical Association, the American Society for Legal History, the David Library of the American Revolution, Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, and the Program in Early American Economy and Society at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Megan Zeller and Amy Baxter-Bellamy and Barbara Natello helped me to navigate the bureaucracies of Johns Hopkins and the McNeil Center respectively. I would also like to thank Daniel Richter, the director of the McNeil Center, for his leadership in making 3355 Woodland Walk such a vibrant and collegial interdisciplinary community. Individuals near and far helped with the final stages of completing this manuscript. Thanks to Joseph Adelman, Jim Ashton, Annette Herbert, Lauren MacDonald, Jean Morrow, Dan Miranda, Ren Pepitone, and Katherine Smoak for copyediting and bibliographic assistance. Finally, this dissertation would not have been possible without my inner circle of supporters. I am grateful to my parents, Barbara Tabak and David Damiano, for their guidance and love, and for welcoming me home during so many research trips. I can always count on my brother, Steven Damiano, to ask the toughest questions. My grandparents, Grace and Robert Damiano and Clara and Morton Tabak, have been among this project’s most enthusiastic supporters and eagerly awaited its completion. Dan Miranda has remained by my side during the ups and downs of finishing this dissertation, always providing the right balance of encouragement and distraction. vi Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgments iv List of Tables viii List of Figures ix List of Abbreviations x Note on Eighteenth-Century Sources xi Introduction 1 Chapter One Within and Beyond the Courthouse: Practices of Debt Collection 22 Chapter Two The Culture of Financial Documentation 71 Chapter Three Observing and Testifying: The Knowledge and Authority of Witnesses 135 Chapter Four Women and the Wartime Credit Economy: Continuing Practices and New Challenges 187 Chapter Five Gender, the Attorney-Client Relationship, and the Development of the Legal Profession 241 Conclusion 291 Appendix One: Sources and Sampling for Quantitative Analysis of Debt Cases 299 Appendix Two: Sources and Sampling for Quantitative Analysis of Witnesses 305 Bibliography 307 Curriculum Vita 332 vii Tables 1.1 Women’s Debt Cases in the Suffolk County Court of Common Pleas 64 1.2 Women’s Debt Cases in the Newport County Court of Common Pleas 65 2.1 Types of Debt Cases in the Newport County Court of Common Pleas, 1731-1791 80 2.2 Types of Debt Cases in the Suffolk County Court of Common Pleas, 1730-1790 80 2.3 Debt Cases Concerning Bonds and Promissory Notes in the Newport County Court of Common Pleas, 1731-1791 83 2.4 Debt Cases Concerning Bonds and Promissory Notes in the Suffolk County Court of Common Pleas, 1730-1790 83 5.1 Reasons Cited in Petitions for Rehearings of Debt Cases, 1730-1790 280 A.1 Sampled Cases in the Newport County Court of Common Pleas 303 A.2 Sampled Cases in the Suffolk County Court
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