[PW] Book identity

[Dorothy Koenig]

Try "The Woman of the House:  How a Colonial 
She-Merchant Built a Mansion, a Fortune, and a 
Dynasty", by Jean Zimmerman -- nonfiction, 
hardcover, 2006.

"From Publishers Weekly
In 1659, 22-year-old Margaret Hardenbroeck 
arrived in New Amsterdam as a highly independent, 
unattached "she-merchant" who collected debts 
from a Dutch cousin's customers and sought out 
buyers for European merchandise. When she died 
three decades later, Margaret was an enormously 
rich, twice-married mother of five with a real 
estate empire stretching from Westchester and New 
Jersey to Barbados and a fleet of trading ships 
trafficking in slaves, furs, tobacco, textiles 
and molasses. Zimmerman's (Made from Scratch: 
Reclaiming the Pleasures of the American Hearth) 
prodigious research unearths a mother lode of 
data on colonial American women, from the 
differences in Dutch and English inheritance laws 
to the fact that wealthy female colonists 
eschewed underpants and menstruated into 
exquisite handcrafted gowns. This rich history 
loses some momentum when the spotlight shifts 
from the feisty Margaret and her bustling 
Manhattan milieu to minibiographies of those 
women who followed in her wake on her Westchester 
estate. Her husband's pious second wife, 
Catherine, built a church; granddaughter-in-law 
Joanna was a socialite political wife whose 
privileged realm was rocked by an alleged slave 
revolt; and Joanna's daughter Mary rejected 
George Washington for a Tory soldier. 16 pages of 
b&w photos not seen by PW. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division 
of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "

>Patron seeks the title of a story (unknown if 
>fact or fiction) about a Dutch Woman who 
>immigrates from Holland to New York and is 
>successful in her own business. She explores her 
>heritage and applies it to her business. She 
>reflects back on her divorce and is able to 
>retain property follwing the divorce.
>
>Thank you for recommendations.
>
>Michael Potts
>Reference Librarian
>Central Reference Service
>Timberland Regional Library
>
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