Female Entrepreneurs In The Long Nineteenth Century

"This volume challenges those who see gender inequalities invariably defining and constraining the lives of women. But it also broadens the conversation about the degree to which business is a gender-blind institution, owned and managed by entrepreneurs whose gender identities shape and reflect economic and cultural change." – Mary A. Yeager, Professor Emerita, University of California, Los Angeles This is the first book to consider nineteenth-century businesswomen from a global perspective, moving beyond European and trans-Atlantic frameworks to include many other corners of the world. The women in these pages, who made money and business decisions for themselves rather than as employees, ran a wide variety of enterprises, from micro-businesses in the ‘grey market’ to large factories with international reach. They included publicans and farmers, midwives and property developers, milliners and plumbers, pirates and shopkeepers. Female Entrepreneurs in the Long Nineteenth Century: A Global Perspective rejects the notion that nineteenth-century women were restricted to the home. Despite a variety of legal and structural restrictions, they found ways to make important but largely unrecognised contributions to economies around the world - many in business. Their impact on the economy and the economy’s impact on them challenge gender historians to think more about business and business historians to think more about gender and create a global history that is inclusive of multiple perspectives. Chapter one of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

This pioneering work comprehensively examines the history of female entrepreneurship in the Russian Empire during nineteenth-century industrial development.

The book examines female entrepreneurship in the nineteenth century. Economic history has long accorded women entrepreneurs a very minor place, relegating them to the status of historical anecdotes. The hypothesis of women’s withdrawal from the business sphere after the eighteenth century has long dominated. However, this view has recently been subject to a fundamental questioning. Women did in fact actively contribute to economic development by occupying key positions in the business sphere as independent workers, investors and entrepreneurs. Businesswomen were no exception in the nineteenth century. They ran businesses of all sizes and in a wide range of industrial sectors. This book helps to bring nineteenth-century women entrepreneurs out of invisibility, by examining their entrepreneurial practices and shedding light on the role of the legal framework in which they operated. This interdisciplinary book will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of economic history, business history, history of law, and economics and management sciences in general, interested in a better understanding of female entrepreneurship in the nineteenth century.

Looking at women, business and finance in the long nineteenth century, this book challenges our traditional understanding of 'separate spheres' - whereby men operated in the public world of work and women in the private realm of the domestic. Drawing on case studies throughout Europe, this book reveals that there was much greater diversity in women's economic experience across all social strata than has previously been understood.International contributors take a new look at women's roles in finance and investment, family-owned businesses, retailing, service activities, and the artisanal trades. They reveal that elite and middle-class women often manipulated financial resources in a highly sophisticated manner. Family-owned businesses and retail trade geared to women, such as grocery and fashion, also offered women opportunities. Throughout, the book considers the impact of industrialization on women's economic agency and examines women in the accommodation business in London, female entrepreneurs in Italy, prostitutes in Germany, family businesses in Sweden, women in publishing in Spain and much more.

A reappraisal of the business enterprises of women in the `long' eighteenth century, showing them to be more flourishing than previously thought.

This volume makes available to English-language readers--in many cases for the first time--the works of nine women philosophers from the German tradition. It showcases their contemporary relevance and their crucial contributions to nineteenth-century philosophical movements. An Editors' Introduction offers a comprehensive overview of the contributions of women philosophers in the Nineteenth Century. Each chapter is furnished with an introduction to the distinctivelife and work of the philosopher in questions. The translated texts are accessible and engaging. The translations are furnished with explanatory footnotes. This is a good fit for courses in 19th Century Philosophy which can sometimes be called 19th Century German (or European) Philosophy, as it's veryGerman-heavy. That is a course that is a vast majority of philosophy departments and required for majors. The purpose of the book is to give people texts to use and assign to diversify syllabi in this area since usually it's just about Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and the like, and no women. For surveys of the History of Philosophy in general, this could also be a core text for people looking to diversify (in terms of gender) their offerings, since 19th Century (German) philosophy is usually sucha major part of those courses given the importance of the work that was done then-again this book allows people to diversify their syllabus

A captivating account of the lives of Laura, Christine, and Caroline Lindhard, three sisters who left their home in Stege, Denmark, in 1870 due to war, political turmoil, and limited opportunities, and sought out new lives in the Cariboo region of British Columbia. There are few stories of entrepreneurial, business class women in nineteenth century BC. They didn’t keep diaries or save letters like the ruling class women often did, and they were usually overlooked in newspaper reports. Yet many came into British Columbia in the early years of the gold rush and helped build and sustain the developing communities. This book tells the stories of three sisters—Laura, Christine, and Caroline Lindhard—who arrived in BC from Denmark in the 1870s. Coming of age in Europe, the Lindhard sisters had aspirations that were restricted by societal norms about what women could and should be and do. This is a story of how each of the sisters made a life for themselves: marrying and having children, becoming single parents at an early age, marrying again or not, working together, providing for their children, and making choices that set them on different paths. While their lives diverged at various points, their commitments to each other and the next generation remained strong. The sisters’ stories illustrate the importance of family and community relationships as support structures for women entrepreneurs who combine family responsibilities with earning a living. While they were not heroic in the traditional, patriarchal sense of the word, the Lindhard sisters were powerful, influential members of their families and their community, and their lives reveal much about the complex social fabric of early British Columbia and the unsung contributions of women.

Josephine McCarty had many identities. But in Albany, New York, she was known as "Dr. Emma Burleigh," the abortionist of Howard Street. On January 17, 1872, McCarty boarded a streetcar in Utica, New York, shot her ex-lover in the face, and disembarked, unaware that her bullet had passed through her target's head and into the heart of the innocent man sitting beside him. The unlucky passenger died within minutes. Josephine McCarty was arrested for attempted murder and quickly became the most notorious woman in central New York. The Abortionist of Howard Street was, however, far more than a murderer. In Maryland she was "Johnny McCarty," a blockade runner and spy for Confederate forces. New Yorkers whispered of her as a mistress to corrupt Albany politicians. So who was she? The prosecution in her murder trial claimed she was a calculating and heartless operative both in the bedroom and in her public life. Or was she the victim of ill fortune and the systemic weight of misogyny and male violence? The answer, of course, was not as simple as either narrative. In this absorbing and rich history, R.E. Fulton considers the nuances of Josephine McCarty's life from marriage to divorce, from financial abuse to quarrels with intimate partners and more, trying to decipher the truth behind the stories and myths surrounding McCarty and what ultimately led her to that Utica streetcar with a pistol in her dress pocket. In The Abortionist of Howard Street, Fulton revisites a rich history of women's experience in mid-nineteenth century America, revealing McCarty as a multifaceted, fascinating personification of issues as broad as reproductive health, education, domestic abuse, mental illness, and criminal justice.