Chapter 9 Quiz: Women on the Frontier — Gender, Labor, and Survival in Mountain Communities
Multiple Choice
1. On most Appalachian frontier farms, who performed the majority of the agricultural labor?
- A) Men, who cleared land and managed all farming operations
- B) Women, who handled daily planting, weeding, harvesting, and food preservation while men hunted and were frequently absent
- C) Enslaved laborers, even on small mountain farms
- D) Children, who were put to work as soon as they could walk
2. The legal doctrine of coverture meant that:
- A) A married woman's legal identity was absorbed into her husband's, and she could not own property or enter contracts in her own name
- B) Women were prohibited from inheriting land under any circumstances
- C) Women could own property but only with the consent of the local court
- D) Women had equal legal rights to men on the frontier, unlike in coastal settlements
3. Cherokee society was matrilineal, which means:
- A) Women served as the sole political leaders of Cherokee communities
- B) Men were excluded from property ownership
- C) Kinship and clan membership were traced through the mother's line, and women controlled households and agricultural land
- D) Women governed spiritual affairs while men governed political affairs
4. The Beloved Woman (Ghigau) in Cherokee society held which of the following powers?
- A) The authority to declare war
- B) The authority to spare condemned captives and to participate in council deliberations
- C) The authority to overrule the Principal Chief in all matters
- D) Purely ceremonial authority with no real political power
5. Mary Draper Ingles was captured by a Shawnee raiding party in 1755 at:
- A) Boonesborough, Kentucky
- B) Draper's Meadow, near present-day Blacksburg, Virginia
- C) The Cumberland Gap
- D) Harrodsburg, Kentucky
6. The captivity narrative genre served which of the following functions in colonial and early national America?
- A) It provided entertainment and justified frontier expansion by depicting Indigenous peoples as threats to white women
- B) It documented Indigenous cultures with anthropological precision
- C) It advocated for peaceful coexistence between settlers and Indigenous nations
- D) It was written primarily by Indigenous authors to describe their experience of colonization
7. Which of the following was a key economic significance of women's home production (spinning, weaving, food preservation, soap-making)?
- A) It was economically insignificant because it did not generate cash income
- B) It functioned as import substitution — producing locally what would otherwise have had to be purchased at great cost from distant markets
- C) It was significant only in households where men were permanently absent
- D) It was economically important only in the wealthiest frontier households
8. Appalachian women's herbal medicine knowledge drew on which traditions?
- A) European folk medicine only
- B) Cherokee botanical knowledge only
- C) European folk medicine, Cherokee and other Indigenous botanical knowledge, and empirical experimentation with local plants
- D) Formal medical training received at colonial medical schools
9. The dower right in English common law provided that:
- A) All daughters inherited equally with sons
- B) A widow received one-third of her deceased husband's estate for her lifetime use
- C) Unmarried women could claim land from the colonial government
- D) Married women could retain ownership of property they brought into the marriage
10. What was the primary reason that formally trained physicians in the eighteenth century were often less effective than experienced midwives?
- A) Physicians refused to treat women
- B) Physicians used unsterilized instruments and interventionist techniques that frequently introduced infection, while midwives generally avoided internal examinations and unnecessary intervention
- C) Physicians had no training whatsoever
- D) Midwives had access to antibiotics that physicians did not
11. The granny midwife in Appalachian communities served which roles?
- A) Exclusively childbirth attendance
- B) Childbirth attendance, herbal medicine, general healthcare, bone-setting, and end-of-life care — functioning as the community's general practitioner
- C) Exclusively spiritual and religious functions
- D) Household management for wealthy families
12. Which of the following best describes the relationship between frontier women and the formal legal system?
- A) Women had full legal equality with men on the frontier
- B) The law of coverture constrained women's rights, but enforcement was weak on the remote frontier, creating a gap between legal theory and actual practice
- C) Women had no legal rights whatsoever and no interaction with the court system
- D) The frontier had no legal system at all
13. Thomas Ingles, Mary Draper Ingles's son, remained with the Shawnee for approximately how many years?
- A) Two years
- B) Five years
- C) Thirteen years
- D) He never returned to white society
14. The Foxfire project, begun in 1966 in Rabun Gap, Georgia, was significant because:
- A) It was one of the first systematic efforts to document traditional Appalachian knowledge, much of which was carried by elderly women
- B) It established the first formal medical school in Appalachia
- C) It was a government program to modernize mountain agriculture
- D) It trained young women as professional midwives
15. The chapter argues that the standard narrative of the Appalachian frontier is "fundamentally wrong about women" because:
- A) Women were not present on the frontier
- B) Women actually held all political power
- C) The narrative treats women as passive and dependent when the evidence shows they were essential to frontier survival, performing the majority of agricultural labor, running the healthcare system, and maintaining the knowledge systems that sustained communities
- D) Women on the frontier lived exactly the same lives as women in coastal cities
Short Answer
16. Explain the concept of import substitution as it applies to women's home production on the Appalachian frontier. Why does the chapter argue that this concept is essential for understanding women's economic role?
17. Compare the legal and social status of Cherokee women with that of European settler women on the Appalachian frontier. Identify at least three specific differences and explain what the comparison reveals about the nature of patriarchal gender roles.
18. Why does the chapter argue that the captivity narrative genre distorts the story of Mary Draper Ingles? Identify at least two ways the genre misrepresents or simplifies the historical evidence.
19. Describe the knowledge transmission system through which midwifery skills were passed from generation to generation. What are the strengths and vulnerabilities of this system compared to formal medical education?
20. The chapter discusses enslaved women in the mountains as a population that has been "doubly erased." Explain both layers of this erasure — what myths or silences contribute to making enslaved mountain women invisible in the historical record?
Quiz for Chapter 9: Women on the Frontier. See the Answers to Selected Exercises appendix for answer guidance.