Not All Wives
Not All Wives

Author: Karin A. Wulf

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2019-05-15

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1501745352

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Marital status was a fundamental legal and cultural feature of women's identity in the eighteenth century. Free women who were not married could own property and make wills, contracts, and court appearances, rights that the law of coverture prevented their married sisters from enjoying. Karin Wulf explores the significance of marital status in this account of unmarried women in Philadelphia, the largest city in the British colonies. In a major act of historical reconstruction, Wulf draws upon sources ranging from tax lists, censuses, poor relief records, and wills to almanacs, newspapers, correspondence, and poetry to recreate the daily experiences of women who were never-married, widowed, divorced, or separated. With its substantial population of unmarried women, eighteenth-century Philadelphia was much like other early modern cities, but it became a distinctive proving ground for cultural debate and social experimentation involving those women. Arguing that unmarried women shaped the city as much as it shaped them, Wulf examines popular literary representations of marriage, the economic hardships faced by women, and the decisive impact of a newly masculine public culture in the late colonial period.

Early Friends Families of Upper Bucks, with Some Account of Their Descendants
Early Friends Families of Upper Bucks, with Some Account of Their Descendants

Author: Clarence Vernon Roberts

Publisher: Genealogical Publishing Com

Published: 2009-06

Total Pages: 744

ISBN-13: 0806306688

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Early Friends Families of Upper Bucks is a collection of genealogical and historical information pertaining to the first settlers of the upper part of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Separate chapters are assigned to each family, and approximately 12,000 persons are named and identified. The genealogies commence with the first of the Bucks County line (usually during the period of the eighteenth century, but also earlier) and proceed, on average, through about eight generations.

Engineering Philadelphia
Engineering Philadelphia

Author: Domenic Vitiello

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2014-02-15

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 0801469732

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The Sellers brothers, Samuel and George, came to North America in 1682 as part of the Quaker migration to William Penn’s new province on the shores of the Delaware River. Across more than two centuries, the Sellers family—especially Samuel’s descendants Nathan, Escol, Coleman, and William—rose to prominence as manufacturers, engineers, social reformers, and urban and suburban developers, transforming Philadelphia into a center of industry and culture. They led a host of civic institutions including the Franklin Institute, Abolition Society, and University of Pennsylvania. At the same time, their vast network of relatives and associates became a leading force in the rise of American industry in Ohio, Georgia, Tennessee, New York, and elsewhere.Engineering Philadelphia is a sweeping account of enterprise and ingenuity, economic development and urban planning, and the rise and fall of Philadelphia as an industrial metropolis. Domenic Vitiello tells the story of the influential Sellers family, placing their experiences in the broader context of industrialization and urbanization in the United States from the colonial era through World War II. The story of the Sellers family illustrates how family and business networks shaped the social, financial, and technological processes of industrial capitalism. As Vitiello documents, the Sellers family and their network profoundly influenced corporate and federal technology policy, manufacturing practice, infrastructure and building construction, and metropolitan development. Vitiello also links the family’s declining fortunes to the deindustrialization of Philadelphia—and the nation—over the course of the twentieth century.