Overview
- Contributes to the revisionist historiography of women in business
- Challenges and reshapes the on-going debate concerning social status, economic opportunities and gender roles in nineteenth-century society
- Examines the two important Victorian cities of Birmingham and Leeds
- Proves that the commonly held view that the middle-class women retreated from economic activity during the nineteenth-century was not the case and in fact women continued to act as autonomous and independent entrepreneurs
- Individual experiences of 100 businesswomen are used to introduce and illustrate key themes and arguments
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Economic History (PEHS)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Aston challenges and reshapes the on-going debate concerning social status, economic opportunity, and gender roles in nineteenth-century society.
Sources including trade directories, census returns, probate records, newspapers, advertisements, and photographs are analysed and linked to demonstrate conclusively that women in nineteenth-century England were far more prevalent in business than previously acknowledged. Moreover, women were able to establish and expand their businesses far beyond the scope of inter-generational caretakers in sectors of the economy traditionally viewed as unfeminine, and acquire the assets and possessions that were necessary to secure middle-class status. These women serve as a powerful reminder that the middle-class woman’s retreat from economic activity during the nineteenth-century, so often accepted as axiomatic, was not the case. In fact, women continued to act as autonomous and independent entrepreneurs, and used business ownership as aplatform to participate in the economic, philanthropic, and political public sphere.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Jennifer Aston is Junior Research Fellow and Retained Lecturer in History at Pembroke College, Oxford, and Research Assistant on the ESRC-funded Professions in Nineteenth Century Britain project, History Faculty, Oxford, UK. She previously held the Eileen Power Research Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK. Her research focuses on gender, entrepreneurship and business in nineteenth-century Britain.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Female Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth-Century England
Book Subtitle: Engagement in the Urban Economy
Authors: Jennifer Aston
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Economic History
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30880-7
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-30879-1Published: 22 August 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-80906-9Published: 22 April 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-30880-7Published: 31 August 2016
Series ISSN: 2662-6497
Series E-ISSN: 2662-6500
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 257
Number of Illustrations: 28 b/w illustrations, 3 illustrations in colour
Topics: Economic History, Institutional/Evolutionary Economics, Industrial Organization, Entrepreneurship