With the use of gender, both masculine and feminine viewpoints are used to create a well-rounded social history. In The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh, Linda Colley incorporates the different aspects of social history in order to explain her life. Elizabeth Marsh is a perfect example of the importance of gender in social history. Her personal experiences were documented, illustrating a social history and giving background on global events, ultimately working towards a social history.5 Elizabeth Marsh shows readers how social history, with regards to women, has changed over time. Race is also an important category of social history which can be seen in Elizabeth Marsh's lifestyle. Elizabeth Marsh was a woman who had a growing awareness of connection between different regions and people.6 In her travels she explored many different places such as the Caribbean, Africa, India and Morocco. These events in The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh allowed for Elizabeth Marsh to be a woman of social history due to the fact that she was aware of different races that were included in the spectrum of social history. Lastly, Elizabeth Marsh was also a product of widely growing migration. The circumstances of her birth and upbringing had already linked her with slavery and migration.7 Since migration was a vital part of Elizabeth Marsh's life she is instantly connected to modernity and change8 which are also important aspects of social history. .
In order for Linda Colley to write a biography of Elizabeth Marsh effectively, she needed to have plenty of sources. Colley's book The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh is solely based on an interpretation of a female captive. Elizabeth Marsh's self-written book The Female Captive was a product of its time and also one of Colley's main sources. In the 1760s, more than twice as many new and reprinted works of fiction by women were issued in Britain as in the previous decade.
