ABSTRACT
This essay considers the social practices and material culture surrounding early modern women’s tobacco habits, which, in contrast to women’s tea taking, have had no part to play in any narratives about social change. Scholars have long been aware that some early modern women did use tobacco, but they have cited a lack of documentary evidence for these practices, and continued to assume that the consumption of tobacco, whether for smoking or snuff-taking, was largely a male affair. Taking a materially enriched approach to the female history of intoxication, this article argues that tobacco taking was widespread among all ‘sorts’ of the female population in Britain and Colonial North America and offered social empowerment for white early modern women.
