North America in the early 1600s was very challenging. Every man, woman, and child had to work to produce food, build shelters, and create the household items needed for survival. Women in these communities had the added responsibility of caring for
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insect life of Nuremberg, and continued to create her art. In 1675, her husband published Maria Sibylla’s first book, a collection of flower and plant illustrations intended to be used as models and patterns for works of art and embroidery. A woman
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reward for the work his wife, Sara, did as an interpreter with local Native communities.
Patent. October 14, 1673. New York State Archives. Translation by Eric Ruijssenaars.
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The colonists of New
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living as Thomasine again.
Thomasine stayed in England for a few years longer. She made a living by crafting bone lace and doing other needlework, traditional women’s work. Like other lower-class people of her day, Thomasine was interested in the
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the early 1670s as an indentured servant. This meant she had signed a contract agreeing to work for a master for a set period of time in exchange for passage to the colonies. In colonial Maryland, men outnumbered women two to one. Dennis probably hoped
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to support their families. In this theory, women were better able to regularly attend the markets because Native men had to spend a portion of every year working for the Spanish. Regardless of their origins, by the early 1600s the markets of Quito
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same work with less human effort. In 1712, Sybilla sailed to London to get a patent for her invention. A patent is a document issued by the government that gives a person full rights over their invention.
Because she was a woman who lived under the
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, and by the 1750s, rice cultivation had made South Carolina one of the richest colonies on the continent.
The enslaved women responsible for this economic boom did not personally profit from their work. They were enslaved for life. If they bore
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Anne Bradstreet, “In memory of my dear grand-child Elizabeth Bradstreet, who deceased August, 1665. Being a year and half old,” The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse (Charlestown: A. E. Cutter, 1867). New-York Historical Society Library
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gender-specific work. Enslaved men needed wives. Dutch women needed help keeping house—survival depended on the work of women. They cooked, gardened, watched children, made clothes, kept the house and laundry clean, and took care of people who were
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