A Woman's Economic History
We are continuing our look at women and money over the
centuries. Last week, we ended with the 1100s in England.
Today, we go across the water to the Americas in 1718. In
Pennsylvania, women could own and manage property. But only if their husbands
were unable to do so.
In 1753, in Russia, there was something called ‘separate
economy’. This meant that Russian women could earn their own income and keep it
for themselves. The husbands couldn’t demand their wives hand over the money.
Just over a decade later, Catherine the Great founded the first state-financed
learning institution for women called the Smolny Institute in St. Petersburg.
We return to the States in 1771. New York established that
husbands needed their wives’ consent if he tried to sell property she had
brought into the marriage. A judge would meet privately with the wife to ensure
she wasn’t coerced and the signature in question was hers.
France in 1791. Revolutionary France gives women equal
inheritance rights. Sadly, women lost those rights when the monarchy was
restored.
In 1839, Mississippi became the first US state to allow
women to own property in their names.
6 years later, New York granted women the right to file patents
in their own name.
In 1848, New York also broke ground when it passed the
Married Women’s Property Act. Now, a
woman wasn’t liable for her husband’s debts; she could enter contracts on her
own, she could
collect rents or receive an inheritance in her own right; she could file a
lawsuit on her own behalf. She became for economic purposes, an individual, as
if she were still single. By 1900, all the other states had versions of their
own act.
Iceland,
1850. The country became the first to establish unconditional inheritance
rights.
Back
to the good ‘ole USA where, in 1862, the US Homestead Act made it easier for
single, widowed and divorced women to claim land in their own names.
That
same year, California passed a law that established a state savings and
loan industry that guaranteed a woman
who made deposits in her own name was entitled to keep control of that money.
The state recognized the full financial independence of women – in 1862 the San
Francisco Savings Union approved a loan to women.
That’s
it for today. More on Thursday.
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Thanks to The Guardian for this information.
Thanks to The Guardian for this information.
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