This book argues that businesswomen were central to urban society and to the operation and development of commerce in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It presents a rich and complicated picture of lower-middling life and female enterprise in three northern English towns: Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. The stories told by a wide range of sources, including trade directories, newspaper advertisements, court records, correspondence, and diaries, demonstrate the very differing fortunes and levels of independence that individual businesswomen enjoyed. Yet, as a group, their involvement in ... More

This book argues that businesswomen were central to urban society and to the operation and development of commerce in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It presents a rich and complicated picture of lower-middling life and female enterprise in three northern English towns: Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. The stories told by a wide range of sources, including trade directories, newspaper advertisements, court records, correspondence, and diaries, demonstrate the very differing fortunes and levels of independence that individual businesswomen enjoyed. Yet, as a group, their involvement in the economic life of towns and, in particular, the manner in which they exploited and facilitated commercial development, forced a reassessment of the understanding of both gender relations and urban culture in late Georgian England. In contrast to the traditional historical consensus that the independent woman of business during this period — particularly those engaged in occupations deemed ‘unfeminine’ — was insignificant and no more than an oddity, businesswomen are presented not as footnotes to the main narrative, but as central characters in a story of unprecedented social and economic transformation.