Laboring Lives and Hidden Stories in Colonial New England

Thanks to sponsor J. Edward Knight Insurance, this online lecture is free and open to the public, pre-registration is required to receive the link to participate!

Click here to register

Colonial New England has long been associated with free labor. But, in reality, most colonial New England households were mixed-labor settings. They relied on a diverse group of unfree people, including Indigenous, African, and European women and men, who served as indentured, enslaved, and hired laborers. In this presentation, Dr. Carbonell will survey the landscape of labor in seventeenth- and eighteenth- century New England, exploring how and under what terms this diverse group of laborers joined colonial households. In her talk, Dr. Carbonell will also reflect on the process of researching laboring people in colonial records that often obscure their histories. 

Caylin Carbonell is an Assistant Professor of History at Bowdoin College, where she teaches courses on colonial North America. She earned her Ph.D. in History from William & Mary in 2020 and her B.A. from Bates College in 2012. Dr. Carbonell is currently working on a book manuscript which peers in on New England’s colonial households and their daily goings-on at a granular level to examine the intimate contestations and collaborations between household members. Her writing has previously appeared in Early American Studies, Commonplace: The Journal of Early American Life and the Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History.