Working Women in the Victorian Middle-Class
Charles Dickens’ character Miss Abbey Potterson is “some sixty and odd” years old, obviously unmarried (Miss), and a business owner (she owns a bar). Despite the fact that Victorian middle-class women were supposed to aspire to idleness, a growing number of women were becoming employed in the 19 th century for a number of reasons. The growing number of “redundant” (unmarried, like Miss Potterson) and widowed women were rarely in a position to be ladies of leisure (Hudson). Although these women were almost always lower middle-class, they still strived for employment above that of the laboring classes.
Evidence of Working Women
The census, which began to include occupations in 1841, is the most obvious source (Hudson). However this information is often inaccurate, since the classification of women’s employment was often contradictory and inconsistent. Female work in a family business was sometimes deliberately excluded from the record (Hudson).
Trade directories supplement the census information. They suggest that a surprisingly high number of women ran businesses, particularly in millinery and dressmaking, in inn-keeping, provisioning, grocery trades and teaching. Trade directories from the period also reveal examples of women running businesses traditionally associated only with men (like Miss Potterson). This minority indicates the boundaries that were being pushed regarding what was proper and improper for women to do (Hudson).
Work Available to Women
Female employment in the 1850s, 60s and 70s was the most recorded until after World War II (Hudson). Domestic service of all kinds was the single largest employer of women, textile and clothing occupations were a close secon...
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“The rampant vice in English society--all men know it, and women too, and both know the others know it--is neither fastness, immodesty, or impropriety of any kind: it is pretence. This it is that makes our society for the most part parvenu society,--burthensome, troublesome, tedious” (Cope).
Works Cited
Cope, Virginia. The Ladies. Retreived 16 March 2005. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ladies/ladyhome.html
“Employment for Females.” The Ladies. 16 April 1872. pg.35. Retrieved 16 March 2005. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ladies/pressex.html#donkey
Hudson, Pat. “Women’s Work.” BBC History. Published 1 January 2001.
Retrieved 15 March 2005. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare/womens_work_01.shtml
Larsen, Ashley. Victorian Women in the Work Force. Retrieved 16 March 2005. http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/ic/mcbride/ws200/lars-hold.htm
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