Women played a vital role in ensuring the survival of early pioneers who settled in what would become Washtenaw County.
Pioneer women in Michigan are often overlooked historically, despite being responsible for securing homesteads while their husbands traveled for supplies.
Susan Nenedic, author of A Purse of Her Own: Occupations of Women in the Nineteenth Century, says women were essential to frontier life—a status that diminished with modernization as household production declined.
“When urbanization and industrialization started, the purchase of bread and canned goods that were available in cities reduced the status of women in the home.”
Nenedic says Mrs. Noble of Dexter was an example of a resilient pioneer woman. While her husband made frequent three-week treks to Detroit in order to use their mills, she kept the settlement going through harsh conditions for over five years, until enough infrastructure was built to establish the village.
Non-commercial, fact based reporting is made possible by your financial support. Make your donation to WEMU today to keep your community NPR station thriving.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on X (Twitter)
Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
