Introduction

Authors

Daryl M. Hafter
Nina Kushner, Clark UniversityFollow

Document Type

Book Chapter

Abstract

This collection of essays explores the diversity of women’s work in the long eighteenth century, paying particular attention to questions of women’s economic agency. The authors investigate how marital status, legal constraint, custom, class, gender, and changes in market organization shaped women’s economic opportunities, and how women, in turn, negotiated these parameters. We will find that women at all levels of the social hierarchy contributed to and helped shape the economy. These essays concern enterprising women in every sense of the word: enterprising as engaged in commerce (as producers and vendors of goods and services, and managers of business ventures) and enterprising as resourceful and imaginative agents taking advantage of and creating opportunities for themselves.

Publication Title

Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France

Publication Date

2015

First Page

1

Last Page

15

ISBN

9780807158326

Keywords

eighteenth century France, women, gender, family economy, women's work, labor

Repository Citation

Hafter, Daryl M. and Kushner, Nina, "Introduction" (2015). History. 84.
https://commons.clarku.edu/historyfac/84