Business and Professional Women of Colonial America

This work plumbs two centuries of androcentric culture to reveal the women who defied convention as they built a career and earned a living. These 146 female entrepreneurs engaged in a wide range of commercial endeavors during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution: from sorting fish, vending brooms and baskets, and marketing plum cake and West Indian fruit to publishing poetry and surveying the shells, fishbones, birds, and seaweed of the Atlantic coast. Guides to professional women organized by career and by place are also included.