The Woman Who Made A Millionaire: A Story About Sally Bickham, Gender, & Capitalism in Early National Philadelphia

The history of capitalism is typically a story about men, implying that capitalism operates primarily outside of the household. That type of history neglects the important roles that women played in the expansion of capitalism. This paper turns that traditional narrative on its head by showing one woman who made such a history of “self-making” possible. This paper will focus on Sally Bickham, a woman in merchant-banker Stephen Girard’s household during the 1790s, described as “houskeeper, … wife and all.” In particular, Sally illustrates how questions of authority and citizenship remained tied to the household even while the newly independent United States attempted to establish seemingly more equitable markers for political and economic participation. Using the Stephen Girard Papers, which include letters, receipts, account books, memorandum books, shipping papers, and miscellaneous documents, I unpack Sally’s economic strategies. Stephen Girard’s (1750-1831) archive provides an excellent lens for understanding the interplay between public and private economic development in its local, national, and international contexts. A central figure in the political economy of the early U.S., Girard’s mercantile network had global reach and at his death in 1831, he was the wealthiest man in the United States. However, this paper and the larger project from which it is drawn, rejects that Girard was solely responsible for his own success. Sally’s work in particular illustrates the ways in which gender suffused strategies for protecting and making capital, shaped a culture of capitalism in early national Philadelphia.