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

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.

. 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

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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

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.

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, Ba