This pioneering book explores for the first time how ordinary women of the early modern period in England understood and experienced their bodies. Using letters, popular literature, and detailed legal
Laura Gowing provides unique insight into gender relations in a time of flux, from the women who tried to vote in Ipswich in 1640, to a grandmother describing the first time her grandson wore breeches
This pioneering book explores for the first time how ordinary women of the early modern period in England understood and experienced their bodies. Using letters, popular literature, and detailed legal
`What else is woman but a foe to friendship ... a domestic danger.' These words, taken from a biblical commentary by St John Chrysostom, are frequently quoted in early modern literature, showing that
Ingenious Trade recovers the intricate stories of the young women who came to London in the late seventeenth century to earn their own living, most often with the needle, and the mistresses who set up shops and supervised their apprenticeships. Tracking women through city archives, it reveals the extent and complexity of their contracts, training and skills, from adolescence to old age. In contrast to the informal, unstructured and marginalised aspects of women's work, this book uses legal records and guild archives to reconstruct women's negotiations with city regulations and bureaucracy. It shows single women, wives and widows establishing themselves in guilds both alongside and separate to men, in a network that extended from elites to paupers and around the country. Through an intensive and creative archival reconstruction, Laura Gowing recovers the significance of apprenticeship in the lives of girls and women, and puts women's work at the heart of the revolution in worldly goods.
Womens Worlds in England presents a unique collection of source materials on womens lives in sixteenth and seventeenth century England. The book introduces a wonderfully diverse group of women and a s
Womens Worlds in England presents a unique collection of source materials on womens lives in sixteenth and seventeenth century England. The book introduces a wonderfully diverse group of women and a s
