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Eldridge, Elleanor
pioneer businesswoman. Elleanor Eldridge was the last of seven daughters of Robin Eldridge, an African native, and Hannah Prophet, a Native American. The young Robin Eldridge was captured along with his entire family and brought to the United States to be sold as a slave. Later, in exchange for service in the American Revolution, he and his brothers were promised their freedom and two hundred acres of land. Though they were granted their freedom as promised, they were paid for their services in the worthless old continental currency and were therefore never able to claim any land. They did, however, eventually save enough money to purchase a small plot in Warwick, Rhode Island, where they built a house. Elleanor Eldridge was born free in Warwick. When Eldridge was ten, her mother died, and against her father's wishes she went to work for her mother's employers, Joseph and Elleanor Baker. Eldridge was Mrs. Baker's namesake and a favorite of the Bakers, who paid her twenty-five cents a week to perform tasks such as spinning, weaving, and housework. She became a skilled weaver by the age of fourteen and was adept at arithmetic. At sixteen she hired out to work for the family of the captain Benjamin Greene as a spinner and later as a dairymaid, becoming an expert in the production of premium quality cheeses. She continued to work for Captain Greene until his death in 1812, leaving only briefly in 1803 after the death of her father to travel to Adams, Massachusetts; there, she sought the help of an aunt in acquiring the letters of administration necessary to allow her to settle her father's estate. After Greene's death she returned to Adams, Massachusetts, to live with her sister Lettise. The two sisters began a business weaving, laundering, and soap making. They were so successful that after three years Eldridge had saved enough money to purchase a lot and build a house, which she rented out for forty dollars a year.
Elleanor Eldridge.Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge, 1838, by the antislavery author Frances H. Green, is one of the few narratives of a free black woman. This picture of Eldridge was the frontispiece.
Duke University, Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Special Collections Library.
Duke University, Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Special Collections Library.
Bibliography
- Green, Frances H. Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge. Providence, RI: B.T. Albro, 1838. http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/eldridge/eldridge.html.
- Hine, Darlene Clark, and Kathleen Thompson. A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.
- Loewenberg, Bert James, and Ruth Bogin, eds. Black Women in Nineteenth-Century American Life: Their Words, Their Thoughts, Their Feelings. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976.
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