IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/femeco/v16y2010i2p47-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Women, Real Estate, and Wealth in a Southern US County, 1780-1860

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine McDevitt

Abstract

In her 1986 book Women and the Law of Property in Early America, Marylynn Salmon concludes that the legal and economic changes experienced by early national and antebellum (pre-Civil War) United States women - which culminated in the passage of married women's property acts - were evolutionary rather than revolutionary. This paper examines changes in the economic status of women preceding the enactment of these statutes by analyzing new and valuable information: real-estate deeds and probate records in Henrico County, Virginia. Supplementing the diverse, yet limited, international and historical evidence on women's wealth holdings, this exploration of the asset accumulation of elite, free women in the southern US reveals that women's property holdings, personal and real, rose substantially over the 1780-1860 period. Thus, these results are consistent with those of other scholars, such as Marylynn Salmon, who document an increase in early national and antebellum women's economic status.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine McDevitt, 2010. "Women, Real Estate, and Wealth in a Southern US County, 1780-1860," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 47-71.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:16:y:2010:i:2:p:47-71
    DOI: 10.1080/13545700903488161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13545700903488161
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13545700903488161?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Goldin, Claudia, 1992. "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072709.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Howes, Candace & Singh, Ajit, 1995. "Long-term trends in the World economy: The gender dimension," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(11), pages 1895-1911, November.
    2. Alison L. Booth, 2006. "The Glass Ceiling in Europe: Why Are Women Doing Badly in the Labour Market?," CEPR Discussion Papers 542, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    3. Rania Gihleb & Osnat Lifshitz, 2022. "Dynamic Effects of Educational Assortative Mating on Labor Supply," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 302-327, October.
    4. Stephan E. Maurer & Andrei V. Potlogea, 2021. "Male‐biased Demand Shocks and Women's Labour Force Participation: Evidence from Large Oil Field Discoveries," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(349), pages 167-188, January.
    5. Robert Prasch, 1995. "Tyranny of kindness: Dismantling the welfare system to end poverty in America Theresa Funiciello," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 71-75, September.
    6. Chiswick, Barry R. & Robinson, RaeAnn Halenda, 2021. "Women at work in the United States since 1860: An analysis of unreported family workers," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    7. Stefania Albanesi & Claudia Olivetti, 2006. "Gender roles and technological progress," 2006 Meeting Papers 411, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2017. "Family Economics Writ Large," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1346-1434, December.
    9. Isis Gaddis & Stephan Klasen, 2014. "Economic development, structural change, and women’s labor force participation:," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(3), pages 639-681, July.
    10. Lídia Farré, 2013. "The Role of Men in the Economic and Social Development of Women: Implications for Gender Equality," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 28(1), pages 22-51, February.
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3t1fcs7p369jmaalnboqhpgknn is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Alberto Basso & David Cuberes, 2013. "Fertility and Financial Development: Evidence from U.S. Counties in the 19th Century," Working Papers 2013011, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    13. Peter Z. Schochet & Ronald D'Amico & Jillian Berk & Sarah Dolfin & Nathan Wozny, "undated". "Estimated Impacts for Participants in the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program Under the 2002 Amendments," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 582d8723f6884d4eb7a3f95a4, Mathematica Policy Research.
    14. Michelle Rendall, 2011. "The Service Sector and Female Market Work: Europe vs US," 2011 Meeting Papers 778, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Steven Ruggles, 2015. "Patriarchy, Power, and Pay: The Transformation of American Families, 1800–2015," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(6), pages 1797-1823, December.
    16. Akerlof, Robert & Rayo, Luis, 2020. "Narratives and the Economics of the Family," CEPR Discussion Papers 15152, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Nan Langowitz & Maria Minniti, 2007. "The Entrepreneurial Propensity of Women," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 31(3), pages 341-364, May.
    18. repec:wyi:journl:002164 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. T. Terry Cheung, 2022. "Schooling, Skill Demand and Differential Fertility in the Process of Structural Transformation," IEAS Working Paper : academic research 22-A006, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
    20. Hélène Périvier, 2008. "Les femmes sur le marché du travail aux Etats-Unis," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-00973039, HAL.
    21. Susan Yohn, 2006. "Crippled Capitalists: The Inscription Of Economic Dependence And The Challenge Of Female Entrepreneurship In Nineteenth-Century America," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1-2), pages 85-109.
    22. D. Mark Anderson & Ryan Brown & Kerwin Kofi Charles & Daniel I. Rees, 2016. "The Effect of Occupational Licensing on Consumer Welfare: Early Midwifery Laws and Maternal Mortality," NBER Working Papers 22456, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:16:y:2010:i:2:p:47-71. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.