This is best shown in three works we discussed in class. Martha Ballard's diary, which detailed her life in colonial Maine, Harriet Jacobs' book, which detailed the lives of women in the antebellum South, and the article on the upcoming women in New Mexico. With these three works we get an idea of ​​how geographical location played a role in the experiences faced by women. In colonial Maine, the climate could be harsh and nearly impossible to grow crops such as sugar or cotton. Money had to be earned elsewhere and, as a result, women were forced to do hard work to help support their families. As a midwife, Martha Ballard writes about having to brave harsh weather and the elements, having to canoe during a winter storm to give birth to a baby. The antebellum South, however, was full of lush, fertile soil, which allowed a cash crop system to boom and make a lot of money for a lot of people. Because of this, many women in the South have never had to work a day in their lives, unlike the girls of Lowell Mill in Massachusetts. Between the husband's earnings and the slave's hard work, there wasn't much required of a pre-war woman. This also fits the dynamics of the race, because due to the lack of fertile land in the north, there wasn't much if any demand for slaves. Therefore, Northern black women had very different experiences than Southern black women. In the southwest, in New Mexico, we see a completely different social order, as they are on the periphery of the United States and can have their own system of doing things, away from American influence. Women in New Mexico were treated as equals to men. They were not held to high standards of purity and could therefore, for example, dress more freely due to the climate being so warm. Therefore, due to geographic differences, a Southern or New Mexican woman's experiences are not reflective