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Adapting to Capitalism

Working Women in the English Economy, 1700–1850

  • Book
  • © 1996

Overview

Authors:
  1. Pamela Sharpe

    1. University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

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Part of the book series: Studies in Gender History (SGH)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Prologue: Making Shift

    • Pamela Sharpe
    Pages 1-2

  3. Introduction: Women Adapting to Capitalism

    • Pamela Sharpe
    Pages 3-18

  4. De-industrialisation and the Staple: The Cloth Trade

    • Pamela Sharpe
    Pages 19-37

  5. Re-industrialisation and the Fashion Trades

    • Pamela Sharpe
    Pages 38-70

  6. Agriculture: The Sexual Division of Labour

    • Pamela Sharpe
    Pages 71-100

  7. Shifts of Housewifery: Service as a Female Migration Experience

    • Pamela Sharpe
    Pages 101-129

  8. The Economics of Body and Soul

    • Pamela Sharpe
    Pages 130-148

  9. Epilogue: Economic Change and Women’s Status in the Past

    • Pamela Sharpe
    Pages 149-153

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 154-226
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Keywords

About this book

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.

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

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Pamela Sharpe

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.

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