Economic Activity in Ante-Bellum America

In 1830, the United States was a nation in transition, evolving into an urban, industrial society at an uneven pace. Agriculture dominated the economy, but subsistence and commercial farming coexisted with artisan and industrial manufacturing. While most people resided in rural areas, towns increased in size, and the population grew more diverse. Coupled with limitations on women’s legal status, these economic and demographic transformations altered women’s and men’s understandings of work and of their place within the family and community. Economic development encouraged political and social reform movements which questioned gender roles and raised fundamental issues about slavery, religion, and the relationship of the individual to society. Yet women in the United States were a diverse group whose experiences were as much separated by particularities of race, class, ethnicity, and region as they were united by commonalities of gender, so this consideration of women in the ante-bellum era examines their divergent experiences within the framework of the economic changes which transformed life in the United States.