General Wadsworth Book

Laurel Ulrich’s The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of An American Myth analyzes the “female economy.” The historiography of early New England traditionally put women outside of market activity until the Revolutionary era. Ulrich responds to earlier views by arguing that long before the Revolution rural New England families, specifically women, began to grapple with a changing market economy. Ulrich uses objects, primarily textiles, to shed light on women’s lives and, perhaps more importantly, highlight their work as important not only to their families but central to the greater New England and Atlantic economies.