Adapting to Capitalism: Working Women in the English Economy, 1700-1850

by Pamela Sharpe

Overview

This book considers patterns of women's employment in the period 1700-1850. Focusing on the county of Essex, material on the worsted industry, agriculture, fashion trades, service, prostitution, and marriage and family life will shed light on contemporary debates in history such as the sexual division of labour, controversy over continuity or change in women's employment, the importance of ideas of 'separate spheres' and 'domestic ideology', and the overall effects of capitalism on women's employment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349244584
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	01/01/1996
Series:	Studies in Gender History
Edition description:	1st ed. 1996
Pages:	226
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

PAMELA SHARPE is currently Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia in Perth. She was Lecturer in Social and Economic History at the University of Bristol from 1993 to 1999. The author received an MA (Hons) in Economic History from the University of Edinburgh and completed a doctorate in demographic history at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, University of Cambridge, in 1989. From 1990 to 1993 she was Essex County Council Research Fellow in Local History at the University of Essex.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Map of Essex Prologue: Making Shift Introduction: Women Adapting to Capitalism De-industrialization and the Staple: the Worsted Industry Re-industrialization and the Fashion Trades Agriculture: the Sexual Division of Labour Shifts of Housewifery: Service as a Female Migration Experience The Economics of Body and Soul Epilogue: Continuity and Change in Women's Employment Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

'Sharpe's study is one of the best, most meticulous monographs on all the ways that women worked in the early industrial period. Women indeed adapted to capitalism and it has taken decades to bring to light all the costs of that achievement'. - Deborah Valenze, American Historical Review

'the book is fascinating in itself...a model of how such studies can be done and invaluable to researchers in many fields...' - Eve Hostettler, Labour History Review

From the Publisher