Gentlewomen and Learned Ladies: Women and Elite Formation in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia

This engaging and important study explores women’s central involvement in the creation of an elite class in colonial Philadelphia. It shows how major mercantile families adopted an English model of class identity and adapted it to the realities of colonial life in the mid-Atlantic region. Critical figures in this process of elite formation, wealthy women employed strategies in marriage, consumption, education, and leisure that established them and their male kin as the dominant social and cultural figures in the Quaker city and its hinterland.In the process, women themselves enjoyed increased intellectual opportunities and political power as well as other privileges of elevated social rank that blunted the limitations they faced living in a highly patriarchal culture. When the American Revolution launched its democratic challenge to aristocratic and imperial structures, women’s commitment to the elite social rank they had helped create ensured its survival. Sarah Fatherly is Associate Professor of History and Director of Women’s Studies at Otterbein College.