ABSTRACT
The men who crossed the Atlantic and settled what became the United States were firm and confident in their intention to make the culture with which they were familiar dominant in the new land to bring into being a different civilization but one conceived and planned in Europe. There is nothing to indicate that women were more conscious than men that their migration would mean breaking away from the mores of the Old World, although they may have been more troubled by the prospect of trying to work out their household responsibilities in the untried wilderness. The yeast that was to leaven American civilization was mixed and vitalized in Europe and transported, without change, to the alien shores. Common fallacy in interpreting woman’s social status has been to think of it as something definite and consistent, a situation easily described and permitting all women to be lumped together.
