[Transcriber's Note: In the original text, some footnotes were referencedmore than once in the text. For clarity, these references have had aletter added to the number, for example, 26a.]
This book is an attempt to portray by means of the writings of colonialdays the life of the women of that period,—how they lived, what theirwork and their play, what and how they thought and felt, their strengthand their weakness, the joys and the sorrows of their everydayexistence. Through such an attempt perhaps we can more nearly understandhow and why the American woman is what she is to-day.
For a long time to come, one of the principal reasons for the study ofthe writings of America will lie, not in their intrinsic merit alone,but in their revelations of American life, ideals, aspirations, andsocial and intellectual endeavors. We Americans need what ProfessorShorey has called "the controlling consciousness of tradition." We havenot sufficiently regarded the bond that connects our presentinstitutions with their origins in the days of our forefathers. That isone of the main purposes of this study, and the author believes thatthrough contributions of such a character he can render the nationalintellectual spirit at least as valuable a service as he could through astudy of some legend of ancient Britain or some epic of an extinct race.As Mr. Percy Boynton has said, "To foster in a whole generation someclear recognition of other qualities in America than its bigness, and ofother distinctions between the past and the present than that they arefar apart is to contribute towards the consciousness of a nationalindividuality which is the first essential of national life.... Wemust put our minds upon ourselves, we must look to our past and to ourpresent, and then intelligently to our future."
The author has endeavored to follow such advice by bringing forwardthose qualities of colonial womanhood which have made for therefinement, the intellectuality, the spirit, the aggressiveness, andwithal the genuine womanliness of the present-day American woman. As thebook is not intended for scholars alone, the author has felt free whenhe had not original source material before him to quote now and thenfrom the studies of writers on other phases of colonial life—such asthe valuable books by Dr. Philip Alexander Bruce, Dr. John Bassett, Dr.George Sydney Fisher, Charles C. Coffin, Alice Brown, Alice Morse Earle,Anna Hollingsworth Wharton, and Geraldine Brooks.
The author believes that many misconceptions have crept into the mind ofthe average reader concerning the life of colonial women—ideas, forinstance, of unending long-faced gloom, constant fear of pleasure,repression of all normal emotions. It is hoped that this book will gofar toward clearing the mind of the reader of such misconceptions, byshowing that woman in colonial days knew love and passion, felt longingand a