New Haven County Court Records: Women's History

LibGuides: Through the perusal of women's personal documents as well as published views about and advice to females, Nancy F. Cott examines the development of the concept of domesticity and "woman's sphere" in New England during the early national period of American history.

LibGuides: Carol F. Karlsen examines the social construction of witchcraft in seventeenth-century New England and illuminates the larger contours of gender relations in that society.

LibGuides: Integrating the approaches of women's historians and political historians, Rosemarie Zagarri explores changes in women's status that occurred from the time of the American Revolution until the election of Andrew Jackson.

LibGuides: In this study of women's property rights in early America, Marylynn Salmon discusses the effect of formal rules of law on women's lives. By focusing on such areas such as conveyancing, contracts, divorce, separate estates, and widows' provisions, Salmon presents a full picture of women's legal rights from 1750 to 1830.

LibGuides: Cornelia Hughes Dayton investigates the changing patterns of women's participation in early American courts across a broad range of legal actions, including proceedings related to debt, divorce, illicit sex, rape, and slander. Using the court records of New Haven, which originally had the most Puritan-dominated legal regime of all the colonies, Dayton argues that Puritanism's insistence on godly behavior and communal modes of disputing initially created unusual opportunities for women's voices to be heard within the legal system.