For children in early America, chores were not optional. Almost everything was done by hand. Keeping warm, having clothes to wear, putting food on the table all took lots of work. Kids were assigned to do simple jobs as soon as their parents thought they were ready (about the age of 7). Most families really needed their children to work so that the household could provide for everybody's needs. Even families that were wealthy believed that idleness was very bad for children.

What would children be doing? The tasks assigned to boys and girls were very different. Little girls would begin taking care of their even-younger brothers and sisters and would help in the kitchen — sometimes by pounding rock salt or loaf sugar into the granulated form we're used to today. They would then learn to clean house, make beds, and sew. Sewing was especially important, because women made almost all the clothes in the household, along with sheets, pillowcases, bed hangings, and curtains. (There are some very small thimbles in the Asa Knight Store at the Village that remind us just how young girls were when they began learning to sew.) As they grew older, they were given more and more responsibilities. By her early teens, a girl might be taking care of a toddler, sewing her own clothes, cooking, helping her mother with the garden, and learning how to make butter and cheese.

Boys had more outside tasks to do. They started off by carrying wood for the fireplace or protecting the crops by throwing stones at birds. They ran errands, helped dig potatoes out of the ground, and hauled stones (probably including some of those they threw at birds) out of the fields. As they got older, they were given harder work, like helping with ploughing, hoeing, and harvesting. A boy whose father had a trade might help around the shop in small ways long before he was old enough to begin an apprenticeship.

All this may not sound like fun, especially since children were also going to school. (Most New England children stayed in school until they were in their mid-teens.) But chores were seen as both necessary and educational. Working alongside their parents, boys and girls learned many of the skills they would need in their adult lives.

Now, a word about occupations: Boys were encouraged to be all sorts of things — farmers, "mechanics" (craftsmen), businessmen, lawyers, doctors, ministers, and manufacturers. Girls were not! Some of them worked as teachers or in textile factories when they were single, but it was generally believed that the best occupation for a woman was to get married, have children, and not work outside the home. (Today we would say that this is a fine choice but that women should also be able to choose any career they want!) Who got the better of this deal? I think you would say that boys in the early nineteenth century were favored over girls — and most historians would agree with you!