Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France

Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France

Author: Daryl M. Hafter

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2015-01-12

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 080715833X

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In the eighteenth century, French women were active in a wide range of employments-from printmaking to running whole-sale businesses-although social and legal structures frequently limited their capacity to work independently. The contributors to Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France reveal how women at all levels of society negotiated these structures with determination and ingenuity in order to provide for themselves and their families. Recent historiography on women and work in eighteenth-century France has focused on the model of the "family economy," in which women's work existed as part of the communal effort to keep the family afloat, usually in support of the patriarch's occupation. The ten essays in this volume offer case studies that complicate the conventional model: wives of ship captains managed family businesses in their husbands' extended absences; high-end prostitutes managed their own households; female weavers, tailors, and merchants increasingly appeared on eighteenth-century tax rolls and guild membership lists; and female members of the nobility possessed and wielded the same legal power as their male counterparts. Examining female workers within and outside of the context of family, Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France challenges current scholarly assumptions about gender and labor. This stimulating and important collection of essays broadens our understanding of the diversity, vitality, and crucial importance of women's work in the eighteenth-century economy.


A History of European Women's Work

A History of European Women's Work

Author: Deborah Simonton

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 9780415055314

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In A History of European Women's Work, Deborah Simonton takes an overview of trends in women's work across Europe including Russia, Britain, Germany and France, from the pre-industrial period to the present.


Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France

Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France

Author: Daryl M. Hafter

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2015-01-12

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0807158321

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In the eighteenth century, French women were active in a wide range of employments-from printmaking to running whole-sale businesses-although social and legal structures frequently limited their capacity to work independently. The contributors to Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France reveal how women at all levels of society negotiated these structures with determination and ingenuity in order to provide for themselves and their families. Recent historiography on women and work in eighteenth-century France has focused on the model of the "family economy," in which women's work existed as part of the communal effort to keep the family afloat, usually in support of the patriarch's occupation. The ten essays in this volume offer case studies that complicate the conventional model: wives of ship captains managed family businesses in their husbands' extended absences; high-end prostitutes managed their own households; female weavers, tailors, and merchants increasingly appeared on eighteenth-century tax rolls and guild membership lists; and female members of the nobility possessed and wielded the same legal power as their male counterparts. Examining female workers within and outside of the context of family, Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France challenges current scholarly assumptions about gender and labor. This stimulating and important collection of essays broadens our understanding of the diversity, vitality, and crucial importance of women's work in the eighteenth-century economy.


Louder Than Words

Louder Than Words

Author: Geraldine Sheridan

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13:

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"Because eighteenth-century French trade law and corporate archives rarely mention women workers, Sheridan analyzes nearly two hundred period engravings to interpret women's roles in pre-industrial France. Images primarily from Diderot's Encyclopédie and Panckouke's 1777 supplementary volume document women as workers, finishers, and managers in manufacturing, commerce, and the crafts"--Provided by publisher.


The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris

The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris

Author: Sharon Farmer

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0812248481

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Sharon Farmer analyzes the evidence concerning the medieval silk industry, adding new perspectives to our understanding of medieval French history, luxury trade, labor migration, intercultural exchange, and gendered work.


Figurations of the Feminine in the Early French Women’s Press, 1758–1848

Figurations of the Feminine in the Early French Women’s Press, 1758–1848

Author: Siobhán McIlvanney

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2019-03-28

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1786949938

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The origins and early years of the French women’s press represent a pivotal period in the history of French women’s self-expression and their feminist and cultural consciousness. Through a range of insightful textual analyses, this book highlights the political significance of this critically neglected literary medium.


Female Agency in the Urban Economy

Female Agency in the Urban Economy

Author: Deborah Simonton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-04-17

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1136275037

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This innovative new book is overtly and explicitly about female agency in eighteenth-century European towns. However, it positions female activity and decisions unequivocally in an urban world of institutions, laws, regulations, customs and ideologies. Gender politics complicated and shaped the day-to-day experiences of working women. Town rules and customs, as well as police and guilds’ regulations, affected women’s participation in the urban economy: most of the time, the formally recognized and legally accepted power of women – which is an essential component of female agency – was very limited. Yet these chapters draw attention to how women navigated these gendered terrains. As the book demonstrates, "exclusion" is too strong a word for the realities and pragmatism of women’s everyday lives. Frequently guild and corporate regulations were more about situating women and regulating their activities, rather than preventing them from operating in the urban economy. Similarly corporate structures, which were under stress, found flexible strategies to incorporate women who through their own initiative and activities put pressure on the systems. Women could benefit from the contradictions between moral and social unwritten norms and economic regulations, and could take advantage of the tolerance or complicity of urban authorities towards illicit practices. Women with a grasp of their rights and privileges could defend themselves and exploit legal systems with its loopholes and contradictions to achieve economic independence and power.


The Ashgate Research Companion to Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe

The Ashgate Research Companion to Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe

Author: Jane Couchman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-23

Total Pages: 728

ISBN-13: 1317041046

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Over the past three decades scholars have transformed the study of women and gender in early modern Europe. This Ashgate Research Companion presents an authoritative review of the current research on women and gender in early modern Europe from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The authors examine women’s lives, ideologies of gender, and the differences between ideology and reality through the recent research across many disciplines, including history, literary studies, art history, musicology, history of science and medicine, and religious studies. The book is intended as a resource for scholars and students of Europe in the early modern period, for those who are just beginning to explore these issues and this time period, as well as for scholars learning about aspects of the field in which they are not yet an expert. The companion offers not only a comprehensive examination of the current research on women in early modern Europe, but will act as a spark for new research in the field.


A Cultural History of Work in the Age of Enlightenment

A Cultural History of Work in the Age of Enlightenment

Author: Anne Montenach

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-09-17

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1350078271

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Winner of the 2020 PROSE Award for Multivolume Reference/Humanities The Enlightenment led to revised ideas about work together with new social attitudes toward work and workers. Coupled with dynamism in the economy, and the rise of the middling orders, work was more frequently perceived positively, as a commodity and as a source of social respectability. This volume explores the cultural implications of the transition from older systems based on privilege, control and embedded practices to a more open society increasingly based on merit and ability. It examines how guild controls broke down and political and commercial systems loosened. It also considers the theoretical justifications that brought new binding ideas, such as the strengthening of ideology on home, domesticity for the female, and work and politics for the male. North America embodied the extremes of these transitions with free workers able to make their way in a society based on ability and initiative while solidifying the ravages of the slavery system. A Cultural History of Work in the Age of Enlightenment presents an overview of the period with essays on economies, representations of work, workplaces, work cultures, technology, mobility, society, politics and leisure.