Name: Elisabeth Colonial Research Project

Humanities A Day In The Life Of….

“A Look At the Colonial World Through the Eyes of….”

My parents came to America from England, they came in search of better jobs. I am Amity Cartwell, and I came to America with my family and my cousin’s family a couple years back. My brother refused to come along; he thought that England’s economy was just going through a rough time, and would be back up in a year or two. I have a sister who came with us, and her children attend our school. My cousin, Emily Baker, and I run a dame school for the local children. Emily and I have been raised together for our entire lives. In our old life in England, our parents had to work almost all day just to have food. Because of this, we shared a house and spent much of our time together practicing the letters that our fathers had managed to teach us in between shifts. Now, here in America we are of the middling class, and are some of the very few women with the knowledge of reading and writing. I wake up early in the morning, to prepare for the day’s lessons. The children I teach come shortly after, they are between the ages of 6-8. My cousin lives in a neighboring house, so she comes with the materials like chalkboards for the students to practice writing on. We teach in my living room until almost sun-down, and then the children leave again, we make use of all the sunlight we can. It is winter now so our days are shorter, we cannot teach them as much as in the summer when the days are longer. I enjoy my job, it allows me to feel like I can always leave for another place, like I am not tied down to any housework or a domestic life. My education gives me a more equal life.