The Ties that Buy by Ellen Hartigan-O'Conner

Book Review by Mary Kneefel

After reading The Ties that Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America, by Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor, one cannot question her passion and interest in American history. She obviously spent a large deal of time, compiling all her sources. Throughout every chapter, there were countless examples of real women who had lived throughout the eighteenth century. She tracked single, married, widowed, and enslaved, women who surpassed great adversity. Despite the title and introduction, I cannot help but question her motives for allegedly writing this book. I feel The Ties that Buy is a fine read, just was not solely based on expanding knowledge of women’s participation in society in an economic sense.

The introduction retells a story of a widow, who must take her deceased husband’s promissory note (written on a nine of clubs) to court. This real account appears so full of emotion of symbolism of women’s status during this era. I believe O’Connor picked an excellent example to begin her novel: as nothing could appear more trivial in the eyes of a judge than a run-of-the-mill playing card. I begin with the assumption her book would be filled with examples to try and spread awareness of women’s struggles, their role in the economy, the process of getting there, and why women failed to receive recognition for so long. It seems she was only able to answer a couple of those. In the midst of examples on how networking, bonds, trusts issues, kin relationships, she added sub-themes. The sudden onset of multiple dimensions in the book, offered greater interest, however, they tended to get lost in translation. This trend continued throughout the course of the text. For example, in Chapter 1, Urban Housefuls, O’Connor she writes about the various components that women used to extend their professional networks beyond the home, such as: managing rent, and hiring slave labor. She continues to expand on the idea providing other tasks like managing account books, and possible advertisements. It seemed she wanted to establish the fact that women were progressing in “allowed” skills, that males initially apposed or never recognized in society. And yet, the next paragraph informs the reader of the eighteenth century law, which prohibits a free man, controlled his wife’s time, and slave’s time. They in turn were able to spend the profit from deals with borders and employers (37) if they had those connections. Another instance can be seen towards the end of the book. In chapter 6, The Republic of Goods, describes the shopping networks women had been able form, and how they had been able to combine domesticity, individual touches, and marketable staples to transform the market as we know it today. After an example on a pair of pockets, the idea that an emotional tie was also being purchased with material value came up. A couple of pages later, she describes how women began personalizing uniforms for slaves. These passages, creates some confusion, because it presents such a negative side of women.

The themes are placed around the idea of class. It describes the socioeconomic status of the era, where men are on top, women in the middle, and enslaved men and women on the bottom. There is no doubt, these issues need to be addressed, but not in such a jumbled manner. In one paragraph women are making improvements, and males are trying to hold them back. Laws continue to tie women down, but they somehow manage to make networks to form economic trade. However, still do not receive recognition, although their presence in the economy is consistent. Slaves at this time were also gaining opportunities, but on a much smaller scale. Laws also held them down. But under all of that, white free urban men and women still had managed to suppress their freedom, as they think that will assert their dominance.

The conclusion of the book carries a distinctly different tone, then both the introduction and the body. In the end there is no heartfelt story of the poor widow Abigail Stoneman, or any woman like her. There is no woman at all. It begins with a quote from Thomas Jefferson to George Washington about the development and position of commerce in the world, not a single reference to anyone of the female gender. Her position seemed to change as well. No longer were women responsible for forming the present-day economy by subconsciously adding domestic details men would not think of. Now men and women efforts complemented each other, as represented in a reference of Enos Hitchcock. O’Connor wrote about how society benefited from unity and equality very eloquently, then makes the reader take a second look after reading the quote, “These forms of knowledge and patterns of work did not just help men navigate the urban economy; they were the economy” (193). No wonder women could not receive recognition for their work a few centuries ago we do not even understand their position now.

The final paragraph of the conclusion is the most puzzling of all: “Such questions, always ambiguous in a society where human beings were brought and sold on city streets, only became more troubling as the nineteenth century progressed” (196). This does not shine positive light on anyone, and does not seem to correlate with the Introduction at all.

I applaud O’Connor for choosing to write a book, on such a complicated topic, with several components, which capture the human race at its worst. But it seems, her primary goal in mind while writing was not trying to describe women and commerce, rather show the facets of societal flaws. Progression of both race and gender was, is, or for that matter will probably never be stable. This too is demonstrated throughout the inconsistent topics in all six of the chapters. The Ties that Buy offers a great deal of information of the economy and class of America throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century, but do not let cover or Ms. Stoneman’s story mislead you.