Drawing on case studies throughout Europe, this book reveals that there was much greater diversity in 19th century women's economic experience across all social strata than has previously understood.

This volume explores the role of women in business in nineteenth-century Northern French textile centers. Lille and the surrounding towns were then dominated by big and small family businesses, and many were run by women. Those women did not withdraw into the parlour as the century progressed and the ‘separate ideology’ spread. Neither did they become mere figure heads - most were business persons in their own rights. Yet, they have left almost no traces in the collective memory, and historians assume they ceased to exist. This book therefore seeks to answer three interrelated questions: How common were those women, and what kind of business did they run? What factors facilitated or impeded their activities? And finally, why have they been forgotten, and why has their representations in regional and academic history been so at odd with reality? Indirectly, this study also sheds light on the process of industrialization in this region, and on industrialists’ strategies.

This volume surveys the role women have played in various types of business as owners, co-owners and decision-making managers in European and North American societies since the sixteenth century. Drawing on up-to-date scholarship, it identifies the economic, social, legal and cultural factors that have facilitated or restricted women's participation in business. It pays particular attention to the ways in which gender norms, and their evolution, shaped not only those women's experience of business, but the ways they were perceived by contemporaries, documented in sources and, partly as a consequence, viewed by historians.

There has been considerable research into the growth of limited companies in Great Britain in the 19th century, but not much is known about their investors, both men and women. This interdisciplinary book, based on new research, investigates the identity and behaviour of these investors.

"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 volume surveys the role women have played in various types of business as owners, co-owners and decision-making managers in European and North American societies since the sixteenth century. Drawing on up-to-date scholarship, it identifies the economic, social, legal and cultural factors that have facilitated or restricted women's participation in business. It pays particular attention to the ways in which gender norms, and their evolution, shaped not only those women's experience of business, but the ways they were perceived by contemporaries, documented in sources and, partly as a consequence, viewed by historians.