A Colonial Woman's Bookshelf represents a significant contribution to
the study of the intellectual life of women in British North America.
Kevin J. Hayes studies the books these women read and the reasons why
they read them. As Hayes notes, recent studies on the literary tastes of
early American women have concentrated on the post-revolutionary period,
when several women novelists emerged. Yet, he observes, women were
reading long before they began writing and publishing novels, and, in
fact, mounting evidence now suggests that literacy rates among colonial
women were much higher than previously supposed. To reconstruct what
might have filled a typical colonial woman's bookshelf, Hayes has mined
such sources as wills and estate inventories, surviving volumes
inscribed by women, public and private library catalogs, sales ledgers,
borrowing records from subscription libraries, and contemporary
biographical sketches of notable colonial women. Hayes identifies
several categories of reading material. These range from devotional
works and conduct books to midwifery guides and cookery books, from
novels and travel books to science books. In his concluding chapter, he
describes the tensions that were developing near the end of the colonial
period between the emerging cult of domesticity and the appetite for
learning many women displayed. With its meticulous research and rich
detail, A Colonial Woman's Bookshelf makes a valuable contribution to
our understanding of the complexities of life in seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century America.
