Seminar 4: Women and the City

Key Texts

Kathryn Gleadle, British Women in the Nineteenth Century

Jane Rendall, Women in an Industrialising Society: England 1750-1880

Martha Vicinus (ed.), A widening sphere: changing roles of Victorian women

Catherine Hall, 'The early formation of Victorian domestic ideology', in Hall, White, Male and Middle Class: Explorations of Feminism and History

TLTP Package: Major Themes in Women’s History

· Discuss the concept of domesticity and its role in placing women in the private sphere in the nineteenth century

· What opportunities were there for women to participate in the public sphere?

· Assess women's contribution to the economy?

· Is there a distance between public rhetoric and the actual experiences of women?

Further Reading

Joanna Bourke, 'Housewifery in working-class England, 1860-1914', Past and Present, 1994

Patricia Branca, Silent Sisterhood: middle class women in the Victorian home

Barbara Caine, Victorian Feminists

Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1750-1850

Sara Delamont and Lorna Duffin (ed.), Nineteenth century woman: her cultural and physical world

Kathryn Gleadle and Sarah Richardson (eds), Women in British Politics, 1760-1860: The Power of the Petticoat

Lee Holcombe, Victorian ladies at work: middle class working women in England and Wales, 1850-1914

Angela John, Unequal opportunities: women's employment in England 1800-1918

Jane Lewis (ed.), Labour and Love: Women's experience of home and family, 1850-1940

Jane Lewis, Women in England, 1870-1950

Sonya Rose, Limited Livelihoods: Gender and class in 19th century England

Martha Vicinus, Suffer and be still: women in the Victorian age