Thèses sur le sujet « Money – Massachusetts – 19th Century »

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2000.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-225).<br>This thesis will analyze the architect William Ralph Emerson's (1833-1917) Boston Art Club building (1881-82) and its station within Boston and New York's art culture. Even though there has been considerable research on the Gilded Age in general and certain art clubs specifically, this club remains a neglected element in art's social history. During the rising development of art culture, a small group of artists founded the Boston Art Club (1854-1950) as a vehicle for production, education and promotion of the arts. To assert their club's presence within patrons' circles, the members commissioned a flagship clubhouse adjacent to Art Square (now known as Copley Square). Emerson, primarily a residential architect and the first Shingle Style architect, won the competition with a unique amalgamation of Queen Anne and Richardson Romanesque styles, an alliance with the nearby Museum of Fine Arts and the Ruskin and the English Pre-Raphaelites. The resultant clubhouse was a declaration of the club's presence amid America's established art culture. Through this building design the Club asserted its status for the thirty years that the arts prevailed on Boston's Art Square. The Art Club's reign, along with the building's prominence, ended when the Museum deemed their building's architectural style out of date, among other reasons. That faithful decision to abandon Art Square and the revival Ruskinian Gothic style would take with it the reverence for the Art Club's building and, eventually, the club itself. Within forty years and through several other struggles the Art Club closed its doors, ending a chapter that began with the need for art in Boston, thrived within the culture of the Gilded Age and sank from the changing trends in architecture.<br>by Michelle Leah Hoeffler.<br>S.M.

Thesis advisor: Kevin Kenny<br>This dissertation examines the origins of American immigration policy. Without denying the importance of anti-Asian racism, it locates the roots of federal immigration policy in nativism and economics in nineteenth-century Massachusetts. The influx of poor Irish immigrants over the first half of the nineteenth century provoked anti-Irish nativism, or intense hostility toward foreigners, in Massachusetts. Building upon colonial laws for banishing paupers, nativists in Massachusetts developed policies for prohibiting the entry of destitute alien passengers by ship and railroad and for deporting immigrant paupers in the state to Ireland, Liverpool, British North America, or other American states where they resided before coming to Massachusetts. Prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, citizenship and its attendant rights remained inchoate, allowing anti-Irish nativism to override certain rights and liberties that were later taken for granted. Nativist officials seized and banished paupers of Irish descent, including some who were born or naturalized in America. Historians have long seen anti-Irish nativism as a set of prejudiced ideas that generated few consequences at the level of law and policy, and have identified late-nineteenth-century federal Chinese exclusion laws as the beginnings of American immigration control. This dissertation argues that anti-Irish nativism in Massachusetts had a significant practical impact on Irish immigrants in the form of state deportation policies, and demonstrates that Massachusetts' policies, which were driven by a poisonous combination of prejudice against the Irish and economic concerns, helped lay the foundations for later federal restriction policies that applied to all immigrants. The argument unfolds in a transnational context, examining the migration of paupers from Ireland, their expulsion from America, and their post-deportation experiences in Britain and Ireland. In this way, deportation from the United States can be seen as part of a wider system of pauper restriction and forcible removal operating in the Atlantic world<br>Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012<br>Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences<br>Discipline: History

<p> Through the artifacts from the Jackson Appleton Middlesex Urban Revitalization and Devolvement Project (hereafter JAM) located in Lowell, MA, this research explores social class in nineteenth-century boardinghouses. This thesis is a two-part study. First, through statistical analysis, research recovers interpretable data from urban archaeological contexts subject to disturbance. Pinpointing intra-site similarities between artifacts recovered from intact and disturbed contexts, data show that artifacts recovered from disturbed and intact contexts in urban environments are not as dissimilar as previously believed. In the second phase using both intact and disturbed JAM contexts, the analysis of four boardinghouse features highlights two distinct patterns of ceramic assemblages suggesting 1) that the JAM site includes artifacts associated with Lowell's early boardinghouse period (1820-1860) in contrast to other late nineteenth century collections from Lowell like the Boott Mills and 2) that material goods amongst upper class mangers versus working class operative were more similar at Lowell's outset. Synthesizing this data with previous archaeology in Lowell, this research shows that over the course of the nineteenth century changes in the practice of corporate paternalism can be seen in the ceramic record. Furthermore, the data suggest that participation in the planned industrial project was a binding element of community interactions, blurring the lines of social class for Lowell's inhabitants in the early years of the Lowell experiment.</p>

<p> During the mid-to-late 19th century, Roxbury, Massachusetts experienced a dramatic change from a rural farming area to a vibrant, working-class, and predominantly-immigrant urban community. This new demographic bloomed during America&rsquo;s industrial age, a time in which hundreds of new mass-produced goods flooded consumer markets. This thesis explores the relationship between working-class consumption patterns and historic advertising in 19th-century Roxbury, Massachusetts. It assesses the significance of advertising within households and the community by comparing advertisements from the <i> Roxbury Gazette</i> and <i>South End Advertiser</i> with archaeological material from the Tremont Street and Elmwood Court Housing sites, excavated in the late 1970s, to determine the degree of correlation between the two sources. Separately, the archaeological and advertising materials highlight different facets of daily life for the residents of this neighborhood. When combined, however, these two distinct data sets provide a more holistic snapshot of household life and consumer choice. Specifically, I examine the relationship between advertisers and consumers and how tangible goods served as a medium of communication for values, social expectations, and individual and group identities. </p><p> Ultimately, this study found that there is little direct overlap between the material record from the Southwest Corridor excavations and the historic <i> Roxbury Gazette</i> advertisements. The most prevalent types of advertisements from an 1861-1898 <i>Roxbury Gazette</i> sample largely did not overlap with the highest artifact type concentrations from the Southwest Corridor excavations. This disconnect may be the result of internal factors, including lack of purchases or extended use lives for certain objects. External factors for disconnect include archaeological deposition patterns, as well as the ways in which the archaeological and advertising data is categorized for analysis. Most importantly, this study emphasizes that the lives of Tremont Street and Elmwood Court&rsquo;s residents cannot be neatly summed up by the materials they discarded. Only through the consideration of material culture, documentary resources, and other historic information can we begin to understand the experiences these individuals endured.</p>

Thesis advisor: Noah P. Snyder<br>Centuries-long intensive land use change in the northeastern U.S. provides the opportunity to study the response timescale of geomorphic processes to anthropogenic perturbations. In this region, deforestation and the construction of dams following European settlement drastically altered the landscape, leading to the impoundment of sediment in mill ponds. This legacy sediment continues to be released into transport decades after a dam has been removed or breached. Geochemical tracers can help distinguish sediment sources and understand how sediment moves through a watershed. The South River in western MA is located in a formerly glaciated watershed, and these surficial deposits compose 98% of the area. It experienced two generations of damming, beginning with smaller mill dams in the 18th-19th centuries, followed by the construction of the Conway Electric Dam (CED), a 17 m tall hydroelectric dam in the early 20th century. Legacy sediment deposits from sediment stored behind mill dams cover 1.5% of the watershed area. The CED is located near the outlet of the river, providing a century-long depositional record for the watershed, during reforestation. I hypothesize that sediment mobilized from human activity will contain a different geochemical signature than glacial material, that recent erosion in the watershed is primarily from anthropogenic legacy deposits rather than from glacial age landforms, and channel widening is occurring in reaches of the channel composed of legacy sediment, rather than in glacially confined reaches. These hypotheses were tested through a two part investigation, consisting of a sediment tracing study using Hg, and a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis of channel changes using aerial photographs from 1940 and 2014. Samples were collected from river bank exposures of 11 glacial deposits and four mill pond legacy sites. Two vibracores measuring 476 and 500 cm were collected in reservoir sediment stored behind the CED in 2013 and 2017, respectively. Hg concentrations range from 1-4 ppb in glacial sediment, 3-380 ppb in legacy sediment, and 2-18 ppb and 7-50 ppb in the two CED cores. I used Hg as a tracer to estimate percent contributions to the CED reservoir from each watershed source during the 20th century. Results from a sediment mixing model suggest glacial sources contributed 32 ± 15%, and legacy sediment deposits contributed 68 ± 15% during the 20th century. Based on 137Cs dates on the cores, high amounts of legacy sediment filled in behind the CED prior to 1953 (74 ± 35 %), and background erosion from glacial deposits dominated from 1953 until the reservoir was filled in the 1980s (63 ± 14%). GIS analyses using aerial photographs from 1940 and 2014 indicate that the channel did not significantly widen along any section of the river, however, increases in sinuosity (up to 12%) occurred in the legacy sediment dominated reaches of the channel, and minor increases (1-2%) occurred in the glacial reaches. Overall, these analyses show an increase in the amount of sediment released in the channel as a result of mill dams breaching through the mid-19th to early 20th centuries, and suggest a short recovery timescale response from this land-use change<br>Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2018<br>Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences<br>Discipline: Earth and Environmental Sciences

Cette thèse porte sur la relation entre les marchés monétaire et financier en France sur la période 1880-1914. On y étudie notamment le marché des prêts à court terme. La thèse étudie en détail deux segmentes de ce marché : les avances sur titres (prêts à court terme garantis), et le marché des reports (« sale and repurchase agreements) . Les intermédiaires clé sont la Banque de France, quatre grandes banques de dépôt, les banques régionales, et les deux acteurs du marché boursier : la Compagnie des agents de change et la Coulisse. La thèse est structurée en trois chapitres. Le premier porte sur l’introduction d’une chambre de compensation dans le marché des reports en France, et étudie les conséquences de cette introduction sur le risque de contrepartie. Le deuxième chapitre porte sur la politique monétaire de la Banque de France entre 1890 et 1913 et le rôle du secteur bancaire sur la transmission de la politique monétaire même. Le troisième et dernier chapitre porte sur la crise financière de 1914 en France<br>This thesis deals with the relationship between the money market and the financial market from 1880 to 1914. It focuses in particular on the market for short-term loans. This dissertation studies in detail two segments of this market: the advances on securities (collateralized short-term loans), and the repo market (repurchase agreements). The key financial intermediaries are the Banque de France, four main commercial banks, regional banks, the « coulisse » operating over-the-counter and the « Compagnie des agents de changes ». The dissertation is structured in three chapters. The first deals with the introduction of a clearing house in the French historical repo market, and studies its consequences on counterparty risk. The second chapter deals with Bank of France monetary policy between 1890 and 1913 and the role of the banking sector in the transmission of policy shocks. The third chapter deals with the Great Financial Crisis of 1914

The research problems of this dissertation were: 1) A description of the perceived value of music in light of political undercurrents in Boston prior to and during the years under investigation, and 2) the profile of the constituency of the Boston School Committee and Committee on Music in 1837 and 1845. Questions addressed the effect of religious and moral concerns of the day on the decision by the School Committee in 1837 to try music in the curriculum, and the possible effect of religious politics on Lowell Mason's dismissal from the schools in 1845. In the minds of mid-nineteenth century Bostonians, religious and moral values were intrinsic to the very nature of music. Key members on the School Committee portrayed music as being spiritual yet nonsectarian in its influence. Therefore, the findings suggest that music was believed to provide common ground between opposing and diverse religious sects. Reasons given for Mason's dismissal by John Sargent, a member of the Committee on Music, showed parallels to H. W. Day's accusations in the press a year earlier that Mason had managed his position in a sectarian manner. Sargent's background supports the theory that religious politics were at work in Mason's dismissal. Although members of the School Committee of 1845 were religious, only isolated cases support the proposition that any of them would have opposed Mason strictly on the basis of religious issues. Evidence suggests that their passivity to the action by the Committee on Music was probably due to concurrent public criticism of attempts at school reform within the Committee. While under such scrutiny, Committee members' inaction regarding Mason's dismissal may have reflected a desire not to jeopardize their own positions as a political body.

Orientador: Elide Rugai Bastos<br>Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas<br>Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-16T14:51:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cordeiro_SaraReginaRamos_D.pdf: 2308227 bytes, checksum: 42cf83bc37ec21bf5a996346688c5ea5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010<br>Resumo: Com a emergência da sociedade burguesa de mercado no século XIX o dinheiro passou a desempenhar um papel fundamental na nova configuração, uma vez que a manutenção e expansão de tal sociedade pressupõem a regularidade nas trocas e, conseqüentemente, uma economia monetária desenvolvida a ponto de assegurar essa regularidade. Alguns romancistas, em particular os realistas franceses, demonstraram em seus romances a emergência dessa sociedade motivada pelo lucro, tendo o dinheiro como elemento central de suas narrativas. A Comédia Humana de Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) é considerada o maior registro literário da sociedade francesa desse período e muitas de suas tramas são atravessadas por relações mediadas pelo dinheiro. Mais tarde, sociólogos como Karl Marx (1818-1883), Georg Simmel (1858-1918) e Max Weber (1864-1920) desenvolveram suas análises numa perspectiva crítica à sociedade de mercado, destacando o dinheiro como elemento racionalizador das relações e desagregador dos laços tradicionais. Nesse sentido, este trabalho pretende mobilizar as categorias analíticas da sociologia clássica para analisar parte da obra de Balzac a fim de verificar como o romancista via a relação que os indivíduos de sua época estabeleciam com o dinheiro e quais os principais impactos dessa relação na moderna sociedade<br>Abstract: The raising of a bourgeois market society in the nineteenth century resulted in the great importance that money started to play in the new social arrangement, since the maintenance and expansion of that society predicted the regularity in exchanges and, as a consequence, a monetary economy developed to the point that insured this regularity. Some novelists, particularly French realists ones, showed in their novels the emergence of this market society motivated by profits, having money as the central element of their stories. The Human Comedy, by Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) is considered the biggest literary register of the French society of that period and many of its plots are crossed by relations mediated by money. Afterwards, sociologists like Karl Marx (1818-1883), Georg Simmel (1858-1918) and Max Weber (1864-1920) developed their studies in a critical perspective from the market society, contrasting money as the rational element of relations and disintegrator of traditional ties. Therefore, this paper aims to mobilize the analytical categories of classical sociology in order to analyze part of Balzac?s work with the intention of examine how the novelist used to see the relationship that individuals of his time established with money and what was the main effects of this relationship in that new society<br>Doutorado<br>Sociologia<br>Doutor em Sociologia

Sous Napoléon III, les pièces théâtrales représentant la thématique de l’argent et de la finance remplissent les répertoires parisiens (comédies, vaudevilles, drames, opérettes, mélodrames ou parodies). Plusieurs dramaturges tels que Ponsard, Dumas fils, Augier, Labiche, Clairville, Lubize ou Sardou portent sur scène la question du gain et de l’affairisme en s’intéressant à toutes ses composantes matérielles, juridiques, morales ou sociales : héritage, mariage d’intérêt, dot, mésalliance, affaires spéculatives, jeux d’argent, cupidité et avarice, exploitation et misère. Comment justifier une telle profusion dramatique ? La situation socio-économique (essor industriel, création et développement du système ferroviaire et bancaire) ainsi que les décisions politiques prises dans le domaine culturel (décret du 6 janvier 1864 sur la libéralisation des théâtres) ont-elles une influence sur la production théâtrale à cette période ? L’obsession de l’argent dans les pièces de théâtre s’expliquerait-elle par l’importance des enjeux économiques de la scène ? Notre étude cherchera à apporter un éclairage sur l’argent du théâtre (dans l’institution théâtrale et dans la vie des spectacles à travers l’étude du rapport de l’acteur, de l’auteur et du directeur à cette question) et sur l’argent au théâtre (traitement thématique, dramatique, linguistique et scénique de cette problématique). De nouveaux prismes, comme celui de la censure impériale, seront également sollicités afin de saisir d’autres dimensions de cette question et de voir s’il existe une sévérité censoriale particulière à l’égard de cette thématique de l'argent<br>Under the reign of Napoleon III, theatrical plays representing the theme of money and finance fill the parisian repertoires thanks to numerous comedies, vaudevilles, dramas, operettas, melodramas and parodies. Several playwrights such as Ponsard, Dumas fils, Augier, Labiche, Clairville, Lubize or Sardou take on stage the question of gain and business by taking an interest in all its material, legal, moral or social components : inheritance, marriage of interest, dowry, misalliance, speculative affairs, gambling, greed, exploitation and misery How to justify such a dramatic profusion ? The socio-economic situation (industrial development, creation and development of the rail and banking system), as well as the political decisions taken in the cultural field (decree of January 6, 1864 on the liberalization of theaters) did they influence theatrical production at this period ?Our study will seek to shed light on the money of the theater (in the theatrical institution as well as in the life of the shows through the study of the report of the actor, the author and the director to this question) and on money in the theater (thematic, dramatic, linguistic and scenic treatment of this problem). Could the obsession with money in plays be explained by the importance of the economic of the stage ? New prisms - imperial censorship for example - will also be sought in order to grasp other dimensions of this issue and to question the existence of political opposition to these representations

Drawing upon rhetorical evidence of three art education activities in Worcester, Massachusetts at the close of the 19th century−The Public School Art League, evening drawing classes, and School Arts magazine−it is argued through this research that the many active facets of art education that occurred in Worcester at this time were constructed in great part as response to the economic climate of the city. This thesis argues that the activities were representative of art education for the improvement of public taste, patience, and the recognition of beauty. In this study, parallels are drawn between these three organizations and activities in Worcester, demonstrating many common initiators and motivations. Exploring art education motivations in Worcester at the turn of the 19th century, this investigation also advocates the need for the study of Japanese influence on art education activities in New England during this same period.<br>text

This dissertation investigates the emergence and development of cause-of-death registration in nineteenth-century Massachusetts. I examine the historical, demographic, sociopolitical, and theoretical conditions that gave rise to the first state-implemented cause-of-death registration system in the United States, Massachusetts's vital registration system. Developments in almost every arena of social life during the nineteenth century were shaped in some fashion through disease. The disease ecology changed dramatically during this period shifting from acute infectious to chronic degenerative diseases, which marked the beginning of the epidemiological transition. Registration systems were key components in this transitional period, providing the raw data on which nineteenth-century public health policy emerged. The greatest challenge that public-health reformers faced in implementing and regulating cause-of-death registration was standardizing the language and practice of disease and cause-of-death reporting. I look closely at issues of implementation and regulation and examine the relative impact that standardized nomenclature and reporting practices had on cause-of-death registration in Massachusetts from 1850 through 1912. Efforts to standardize disease and cause-of-death terminology in the United States and internationally did not, however, successfully emerge until the late nineteenth century. While many disease terms were in common, their diagnostic applications were not. I argue that certain constitutive and regulative features of death registration did not match up with the institutional mandate of Massachusetts's vital registration system until forty years after its implementation. The institution-building process required the alignment of these features as normative practices, culminating in the organized efforts of European and American medical professionals to instruct physicians in proper nomenclature through explicit references and sanctions in the 1900 International Classification of Diseases. The pragmatic conditions out of which both Massachusetts' cause-of-death registration system and the International Classification of Diseases emerged did not consist of special circumstances or unique cultural practices. The social meanings of mortality in nineteenth-century Massachusetts reflected the public commitments of a diverse set of communities and practices that shared similar resources in working out the struggles and triumphs of communicating the language of death and disease.

Gong Yibing.<br>Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006.<br>Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-121).<br>Abstracts in English and Chinese.<br>Introduction --- p.1<br>Chapter Chapter I. --- Basic Monetary Terms --- p.9<br>Basic Functions of Money --- p.10<br>China´ةs Bimetallism --- p.16<br>The Terminology --- p.19<br>Chapter Chapter II. --- The Influx of Foreign Silver Coins into China --- p.22<br>Chapter Chapter III. --- The Circulation of Foreign Silver Coins --- p.39<br>The Spread of Foreign Silver Coins in China --- p.39<br>Case Study I: Fujian --- p.46<br>Case Study II: Guangdong --- p.65<br>Case Study III: Jiangsu and Zhejiang --- p.82<br>Conclusion --- p.101<br>Bibliography --- p.108

Railroads entered American life during the second quarter of the nineteenth century through the efforts of rural residents who embraced this new technology. In an era of expanding economic opportunities, men and women throughout Massachusetts related what they learned about railroads to their previous experience with mechanization and transportation improvements and took the lead in developing rail projects. By 1850, more than 1,000 miles of track crisscrossed the state, carrying millions of riders annually. Popular support was not only essential to the railroads’ success; rural habits determined the railroads’ final form. In the past, business and economic historians have made railroads the basis of organizational and network studies and measured their support by the allocation of public funds. They have overlooked rural capitalism and early rail technology. This project eschews economic and scientific determinism in favor of a humanistic approach influenced by Jan de Vries’s theory of the “Industrious Revolution” and Joyce Appleby’s definition of capitalism as a cultural system that challenges traditional norms. It identifies several models of railroad development in Massachusetts that break down the traditional binary between “rural” and “urban.” It also refines the investment model of Arthur M. Johnson and Barry E. Supple, which distinguishes “opportunistic” from “developmental” projects. This study recovers the lived experience of rural residents at the intersection of technology and culture. Among its sources, it uses the U.S. Census of Manufactures to show widespread industrialization and a long history of remaking the landscape in the countryside. Rather than trace the flow of investment capital, it examines corporate charters and petitions to measure rural residents’ support for rail technology and their engagement with the political process. It examines knowledge and technology transfer to demonstrate that rural residents were as equipped as urban investors to evaluate new technology and gauge its potential applications. Because Massachusetts was a national leader in industry, politics, the law, reform, the arts, and culture in this period, this more accurate understanding of how railroads emerged helps to reshape our understanding of key topics in the early republic.<br>2022-11-12T00:00:00Z

With the granting of self-government to the colonies of eastern Australia in the 1850s, each colony became responsible for its own land legislation. Each produced legislation that enabled settlement by small farmers, the selectors. In New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland this led to conflict between the selectors and those who had previously established their sheep runs on the land, the squatters, as they became known in Australia. The land legislation also enabled the development of agriculture in those colonies. Tasmania produced twenty-one Waste Lands Acts over a period of thirty-one years, and introduced a number of land schemes to attract immigrants. In spite of these attempts, the Tasmanian economy remained in depression, agricultural output declined, and immigration stagnated. This thesis argues that the Waste Lands Acts of Tasmania were critical for the economic development of the country. Under British rule, the land legislation had created a monopoly in which the large landholders, the pastoralists, controlled the best land and the parliament. After self-government, the Waste Lands Acts determined how and where people lived and they determined the economic and political relationships between the small farmers and the monopolists. This thesis has two major lines of enquiry. The first is centered on the land legislation, the Waste Lands Acts of Tasmania, under which land was alienated from 1858 to 1889. The second examines the way people lived under the provisions related to small farming. The main sources used include the legislation, the parliamentary papers, the parliamentary debates, and the official archives. A number of farm diaries and associated correspondence, from both the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office (TAHO) and from private collections, have been used, as well as contemporary newspapers and journals. The thesis has three parts. The first contains introductory material. It examines the systems of land alienation and the way people lived under these prior to self-government. It then provides an economic history for the period studied here, 1858 to 1890. The second part analyses the Waste Lands Acts, the debates that drove them, their provisions, their economic impact and the way the new settlers lived under them. The third part is a case study of an agricultural area opened for settlement under the Waste Lands Acts. This thesis contributes to knowledge by providing an economic and social history of a period previously little studied. It found that democratization of land ownership, a major driving force behind the land legislation in the other Australian colonies, was largely absent in Tasmania. Instead, the Waste Lands Acts were driven by the ideal of improvement, which was to be achieved by settling yeoman farmers on the land. Their implementation was flawed. The financial constraints, under which the Tasmanian government operated, meant the primary purpose of the land legislation must be to raise revenue, not encourage agriculture. They fuelled a pastoral land grab. Settlement of agricultural lands and exploration of the rich mineral lands were delayed by the practice of withdrawing lands from selection on the grounds that they might be auriferous. The operation of the Waste Lands Acts was further hampered by the refusal of the Legislative Council, Tasmania’s upper house in parliament, to agree to the construction of roads and bridges in the new areas being opened up. This prolonged the economic depression. In spite of these hindrances, selectors did establish new farms, contributing to the restructuring of agriculture and helping to fuel the development of regional economies.

This dissertation constructs a cultural history of women's performances in Boston from 1762-1823, using materialist feminism and ethnohistory. I look at how "woman" was historically understood at that time, and how women used those discourses to their advantage when constructing performances that allowed them to intervene in political culture. I examine a broad range of performance activities from white, black, and Native American women of all classes. Chapter two discusses three of Boston's elite female intellectuals: Mercy Otis Warren, Judith Sargent Murray, and Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton. Though each woman's writings have been examined individually, I examine them as a community. With the connections and public recognition they built, they helped found the Federal Street Theatre where they could have a ventrioloquized embodied performance for their ideas on women's rights, abolition, and political parties. Chapter three looks at the construction of three solo performances: Phillis Wheatley performing her poetry in 1772; the 1802 theatre tour of Deborah Sampson Gannett, who fought as a man in the revolution; and the monologues and wax effigy creations of Patience Lovell Wright circa 1772. These women depended on their performances for sustenance, and in Wheatley's case, to secure her freedom from bondage. I look at the way these women created a mythology about themselves and crafted a marketable image, both on and off the stage. In particular, I examine the ways each grappled with a charged discourse surrounding their bodies. In chapter four I look at fashion as performance. I explore homespun dresses as political propaganda, Native American and black women's use of clothing to express cultural pride that white Anglo society had attempted to erase, and the way that women used mourning costumes to perform and create nationalism at the mock funerals held for Washington after he died in 1799. In my conclusion I contrast the 2008 miniseries John Adams with a solo performance of Phillis Wheatley. I briefly trace the trajectory of the history of women during this time. I argue that focusing on performance identifies and legitimizes other sources of evidence and locates examples of women's agency in shaping popular culture.<br>text