#  Pious, Submissive, but Literate: The Schwenkfelder Women of Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania 

 



Christine Hucho

Considerable research has been undertaken on the migration of German-speaking people to eighteenth-century Pennsylvania, who formed the largest white, non-British group of emigrants at that time, but the story of their women still remains to be told. These female settlers of the first and second generation were exposed to the conflicting alternatives of assimilation and cultural persistence. These pressures had a crucial impact on the development of their roles, attitudes, and actions. Findings on gendered differences among one particular group, the Schwenkfelders, may reveal new insights into the lives of all German women immigrants. An unusual letter collection and a number of wills show a highly patriarchal society with separate spheres based on gender. Schwenkfelder women had very little contact with settlers of different ethnicity, but they enjoyed a strikingly high level of education.

**\[WP #96024\]**