Customs and Fashions in Old New EnglandEarle, Alice Morse
History
Customs and Fashions in Old New England
Earle, Alice Morse
New England -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
The only book that was written by a woman and published in New England
during the first century of New England printing, was a collection of
the poems of Anne Bradstreet. A few--very few--pamphlets by women
authors of that date are also known: "The Confession of Faith--A Summary
of Divinity drawn up by a young Gentlewoman in the 25th year of her
Age;" Mrs. Elizabeth Cotton's "Peculiar Treasure of the Almighty King
Opened;" Elizabeth White's "Experience;" Mary Rowlandson's pathetic
account of her captivity--these are all. Hannah Adams was the first New
England woman to adopt literature as a profession.
Doubtless many Puritans shared Governor Winthrop's opinion of literary
women, which that tolerant and gentle man expressed thus:
"The Governor of Hartford upon Connecticut came to Boston, and
brought his wife with him (a godly young woman and of special
parts) who was fallen into a sad infirmity, the loss of her
understanding and reason which had been growing upon her divers
years by occasion of her giving herself wholly to reading and
writing, and had written many books. Her husband being very loving
and tender of her, was loath to grieve her; but he saw his error
when it was too late. For if she had attended her household
affairs, and such things as belong to women, and not gone out of
her way and calling to meddle in such things as are proper for men,
whose minds are stronger, etc., she had kept her wits, and might
have improved them usefully and honorably in the place God had set
her."
I know of no illustrated books printed New England in the seventeenth
century, nor any with frontispieces or portraits. In 1723 a portrait of
Increase Mather appeared in his Life, which was written by monopolizing
Cotton Mather. It was a poor thing, being engraved in London by John
Sturt. When Peter Pelham came to Boston about 1725 and started as a
portrait engraver, and married the Widow Copley with her thriving
tobacco shop, he engraved and published many likenesses of authors and
ministers, some of which were bound with their books, others sold singly
by subscription. The mezzotint of Cotton Mather, made in 1727, sold for
two shillings. Hubbard's Narrative had a map in 1677; and in 1713 the
lives of Dr. Faustus, Friar Bacon, Conjurors Bungay and Vanderwart were
printed conjointly in a volume "with cuts"--perhaps the earliest
illustrated New England book, unless we except the New England Primer.
"The Prodigal Daughter, or the Disobedient Lady Reclaimed" had "curious
cuts;" so also did the "Parents Gift" in 1741, and "A Present for a
Servant Maid." "Pilgrim's Progress" was printed in Boston in an
illustrated edition in 1744. But for any handsomely illustrated books
American readers sent, until Revolutionary times, to England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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