Woman's Life in Colonial Days

Woman's Life in Colonial Days is by Carl Holliday, and its preface describes an attempt to portray the life of the women of that period by means of the writings of colonial days. Bradford, in his History of Plymouth Plantation, confirms the stories told by others, and says that in two or three months' time half of their company died. Edward Johnson, writing of the privations of 1631, says the women once a day, as the tide gave way, resorted to the mussels and clambanks, where they daily gathered their families' food.

The text quotes a Miss Chambers in Philadelphia, who describes her dress as white brocade silk, trimmed with silver. Nathaniel Ward, writing in 1647 in his Simple Cobbler of Aggawam, declares that it is a more common than convenient saying that nine tailors make a man. The text recalls a scene when the women of Boston pinned up their dresses, took off their shoes, and waded about in the mud and slush fortifying Boston Neck.