Family Fortunes

Women, Occupations and Work in the Victorian Censuses Revisited

“…Davidoff had herself, in a contribution to a collection in 1979, queried the Victorian separation of home and work in the case of landladies. 27 Much recent work has also undermined the concept of a strict separation between the work of men and women, at least among middle-class women, offering empirical evidence on women's business roles in nineteenth-century Britain. Here we might include the collection Women 28 Some of these authors however, as already noted, draw directly upon my own work to point to the supposed problematic nature of the census as a source.…”

Mixed feelings

“…45 However, she argues that to interpret the commodification of women's private roles and responsibilities as a proof of their increasing economic passivity during the Victorian age and beyond, previously argued by Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall among others, is unjust. 46 Renting out rooms at home, as Mrs Oster did on a regular basis, or opening a professional hotel-business in the way Sidsel Aanrud did, required extensive interaction with customers and the general public, in addition to many general skills necessary to run a business. This increased women's general visibility in the public sphere, in the streets and squares, clubs and organizations, as well as by ads in newspapers, travel guides, and weekly magazines.…”

Customs in Common: Marriage, Law and the Making of Difference in Colonial Natal

“…While the biological and familial identity of wife and sister were different in the nineteenth century, the social identity of wife and sister shared many characteristics flowing from the feminine ideal. 22 As a result, a sister-in-law could almost be merged with a man's wife, imitating the wife's feminine role in the household -her place in the reproduction of family life: her similar maternal relationship with children, and her companionate relationship with him. Not only did this reflect the manner in which the reproduction of family life -care for children, their moral upbringing -centred on women's labours, but it also reflects nineteenth-century understandings of gender and family structure, particularly the notion that marriage was between families rather than individuals.…”