Download or read book Loosening the Bonds written by Joan M. Jensen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1986-01-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book--the first to investigate the rich and complex lives of rural women during this period--focuses on women in the Philadelphia hinterland and shows how they became an essential part of that area's rise to agricultural prominence." The author concludes that "rural women in the mid-Atlantic region decreased patriarchal power within the family, became active shapers of the process of commercialization and economic development, and carved out new roles for themselves in public life--providing the base for the development of the feminist movement in the antebellum era"--Jacket.