The first book of its kind to study this period, Gerry Holloway's essential student resource works chronologically from the early 1840s to the end of the twentieth century and examines over 150 years of women’s employment history. With suggestions for research topics, an annotated bibliography to aid further research, and a chronology of important events which places the subject in a broader historical context, Gerry Holloway considers how factors such as class, age, marital status, race and locality, along with wider economic and political issues, have affected women’s job opportunities and status. Key themes and issues that run through the book include: continuity and change the sexual division of labour women as a cheap labour force women’s perceived primary role of motherhood women and trade unions equality and difference education and training. Students of women’s studies, gender studies and history will find this a fascinating and invaluable addition to their reading material.

This volume addresses some of the difficult issues surrounding women's work during a century of social upheaval, and demonstrates how hard it is to be precise about the nature and extent of women's occupations. It focuses on working-class women and the many problems relating to their work, full-time and part-time, paid and unpaid, outside and inside the home. Elizabeth Roberts examines men's attitudes to women's work, the difficulties of census enumeration and women's connections with trade unions. She also tackles in depth other areas of contention such as the effects of legislation on women's work, a 'family wage', and unequal pay and status. Dr Roberts' study provides a unique overview of an expanding field of social and economic history, while her survey of the available literature is a useful guide to further reading.

This book surveys women and work in English society before its transition to industrial capitalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The time span of the book from 1300 to 1800 allows comparison of women’s work patterns across various phases of economic and social organisation. It was originally published in 1985. Several important themes are highlighted throughout the individual contributions in the book. The most significant is the association between home and work. Not only was trade and manufacture in the pre-industrial period carried out in close proximity to domestic life, many household activities also overlapped with commercial ones. The second key theme is the importance of the local social and economic environment in shaping the nature and extent of women’s work. The book also demonstrates the similarity between certain aspects of women’s work before and after industrialisation. The industrial revolution may have made sexual divisions of labour more apparent but their origins lie firmly in the pre-industrial period.

The work of women is recognised as having been fundamental to the industrialization of Britain. These studies explore how that work was remunerated, in studies that range across time, region and occupation. Topics include the changing nature of women's work, customary norms, and women and the East India Company.

The essays in this collection focus on the ways rural life was represented during the long nineteenth century. Contributors bring expertise from the fields of history, geography and literature to present an interdisciplinary study of the interplay between rural space and gender during a time of increasing industrialization and social change.

Combining evidence from primary research, with an emphasis on personal testimony, with work of specialist scholars in social, economic, political and cultural history, this study examines the changing meaning of femininity within the broad historical time periods of the 20th century. Each chronological chapter maps out developments for women at work, in the family, sexuality, education, feminism and other political movements.