History 231 Reading Guide
The Chesapeake Bay: The instability of a tobacco society
- Lois Green Carr, “Emigration and the Standard of Living: The Seventeenth Century Chesapeake,” Journal of Economic History 52.2 (1992): 271-291. JSTOR
- Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, “The Planter’s Wife: The Experience of White Women in 17th-century Maryland,” WMQ 3rd ser. 34.4 (1977): 542-571. JSTOR
Questions:
- Why did certain English folk choose to emigrate to the colonies, and why did they come to the Chesapeake Bay? What did they gain and what did they lose?
- What questions does Carr ask about emigration, and what econometric measures does she use to answer them?
- What does she conclude about relative costs and benefits?
- According to Carr and Walsh, who were the women who first emigrated to Maryland?
- How do Carr and Walsh characterize the opportunities and options for women in the Chesapeake?
- How did the initial “disruption” of patriarchal society in the Chesapeake impact both women’s opportunities and the “social order” more broadly? How long term was this consequence?