Christopher A. Schnell writes in "Women and the Law of Property," in In Tender Consideration: Women, Families, and the Law in Abraham Lincoln's Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002), pp. 150-151:
As early as 1828, and with increasing frequency through the next three decades, women in Sangamon County wrote wills to maintain control over the division of their property.... In almost every instance the author assigned her assets to her children, either directly or by trust.... Several wills exhibited the propensity of women to favor female heirs, often transferring trust property from their own name to their daughter's or granddaughter's name. Women who transferred property exclusively to their daughter(s) sought to control their property so that their daughters had at least the same measure of support that their mother had garnered, without interference from husbands. Jane McCann put all her property in trust for her daughter and specifically excluded her son-in-law from access to the title to the land. Thus, no matter what became of her daughter's marriage, Jane McCann ensured some financial support for her daughter.
Plus more examples. Read the whole thing.
