HHS March Lecture
IMAGINING COLONIAL WOMEN IN THE HUDSON VALLEY

Presented by Susan Ingalls Lewis, Professor Emerita in History at SUNY New Paltz

March 23, 7pm Online (pre-registration required - free to attend)

The term “Colonial Women” conjures up visions of quaintly dressed women of European extraction going about daily, domestic chores – like churning butter, or hanging over a fireplace stewpot. But the women who lived in what would some day become New York State were a diverse group in terms of race, culture, religion, national background, and socioeconomic class. New York’s colonial women ranged from indigenous people to those of Western European descent (Dutch, English, French, Belgian, and German, among others) – from religious refugees to enslaved Africans to capitalists. As in all periods, age and marital status also created diversity among women. Beginning with an overview of Colonial New York, this talk will focus on the many ways in which women shaped the history of the Hudson Valley between 1609 and 1775. We will end with a short addendum on New York women’s experiences in the American Revolution.

Susan Ingalls Lewis is Professor Emerita in History, and a former affiliate faculty member of the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at SUNY New Paltz, where she taught courses in American History, Women’s History, and New York State History. With Emily Hamilton-Honey, Dr. Lewis is the co-author of Girls to the Rescue: the Impact of World War I on Girls’ Series Fiction (McFarland & Company, 2020). She is also the author of Unexceptional Women: Female Proprietors in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Albany, New York, 1830-1885 (Ohio State University Press, 2009), and co-editor of Suffrage and its Limits: The New York Story (SUNY Press, 2020). Dr. Lewis is a Fellow of the New York Academy of History, and creator of the blog, New York Rediscovered. She lives in Rosendale, New York.

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