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to the longer time that newspapers had been established.

Some of the examples quoted show that women sometimes inherited their businesses; about as often they transmitted them to a son or daughter, or to another person. This was the case with Alice Quick, who sold dishes and dry goods at the "Sign of the Three Kings in Cornhill," and who advertised frequently from 1754 until 1761. In 1761 her executors gave notice of the settlement of her estate, and one of them, her nephew, Thomas Knight, announced that he would continue her business.1 There is evidence that it was a business worth continuing; the account-book of Peter Faneuil shows that Mrs. Quick had imported through him goods to the amount of £1500 in one month.2

Partnerships were frequent. Mary Purcell and Jane Eustis started business together in 1755; apparently they did not agree, for in 1759 Jane Eustis was in business for herself, and in the same year Sarah Todd and Mary Purcell started a partnership which advertised extensively until 1773.

1 Boston Evening Post, November 23, 1761. (Record of Boston Marriages, 1700-1751, p. 134, gives the marriage of Alice Boucher and Richard Quick, May 12, 1726.)

2 Earle, Colonial Dames, p. 56.

• Boston Evening Post, June 2, 1755; September 4, 1758; August 20, 1759 and ff.

The words "for cash," or "for cash only," are frequently met with in the advertisements, but there is evidence that, whatever the preferences of the shopkeeper, she frequently allowed credit, and sometimes accepted goods in barter. Doris Viscount concluded a long notice in the "Boston Evening Post" for December 30, 1751 as follows:

The above articles to be sold in such quantities as will best suit the Buyers, for which I will take Pork or Beef in Payment, or other Commodity that will answer. Those who allowed credit evidently had their troubles, and advertisements like the following are

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All persons indebted to Mrs. Hannah Lee of Marblehead, upon Bond, are desired to come and make speedy payment; and if not convenient to pay the money, to come and bring surety and change bonds into negotiable notes of hand, on Monday and Tuesday, the 22 and 23rd, and those neglecting will be sued in the December Court.

Not all the women shopkeepers proved successful. Mary Bennett had inserted short advertisements several times in the Boston papers of 1747; but in 1751 appears a notice regarding the estate of "Mary Bennett, spinster, deceased, represented insolvent." 2

1 Essex County Gazette, November 9, 1773.
Boston Evening Post, September 30, 1751.

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During the black years of 1757-58, nowever, when Boston particularly suffered from the French and Indian wars, and notices of bankruptcy were in every paper, no woman was observed among the unfortunates. Women merchants shared, and took opposite sides in, the excitement regarding the Stamp Act. In the list of Salem merchants who protested against the Act the names of five women appear, and two are to be found among the four merchants who are advertised in the "Essex County Gazette" for November 13, 1770, for having imported goods contrary to agreement, and having "thus taken an ungenerous advantage of their fellow traders."

Anything like statistical accuracy as to the number of women who ran shops in colonial days is, from the nature of our information, impossible. The Census Bureau has published a study of "Women at Work" based on the census of 1900, which states that of the total number of persons who were merchants and dealers (except wholesale) 95.7 per cent were men, and only 4.3 per cent women.1 (This, of course, does not include salespeople.) Any one who has read over a file of early newspapers will be convinced that the proportion of women was larger in colonial days. The names of 1 Women at Work, Table xxII, p. 32.

all regular merchants advertising in the "Boston Evening Post" during the first six months of 1773 were counted, showing sixty-four men merchants, including eight partnerships, sex not known, but assumed to be men, as against six women, including one partnership known to be composed of women. These figures are too small to be worth much; but the resulting proportion of about nine and a half per cent appears to be a reasonable estimate.

CHAPTER III

THE ARTIFICER

THE treasured samplers, babies' bonnets, quilts and gowns, which grace the museums of our historical societies, show what exquisite handiwork the women of an earlier day could execute. Handiwork indeed it was, in the days when an electric sewing machine would have savored of the black arts; and gazing at the lovely pieces still extant, we feel sometimes as if our great-great-grandmothers must have been like the immortal CurlyLocks, whose one occupation was to "sew a fine seam."

Yet it may be admitted that these skillful ladies undoubtedly did wash the dishes, and eke feed the swine; at any rate, Bradford tells us, in 1623, "The women now wente willingly into the field, and tooke their little-ons with them to set corne." 1 Yet this, if not in, was emphatically for, the home, as Bradford is describing the difference in attitude which came about with the establishment of individual instead of communal holdings. Whatever the range of our grandmothers' activities, 1 Bradford, p. 146.

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