Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century

The booklet examines domestic life in seventeenth-century Virginia, arguing that establishment of households was essential to colonial stability and economic enterprise. It surveys motives for colonization including hopes for wealth, opening trade routes, population pressures, and the search for raw materials and markets. Descriptions of dwellings and plantations emphasize architecture, mills, orchards, gardens and vineyards, and household industries that produced cloth, leather, dairy and cider. Attention is given to the roles of women, servants, and artisanal labor in sustaining homes, and to how household production linked private life to broader colonial commerce.