Graduate Student, Modern History
School of History and Cultures
Thesis Title: Female Business Owners in Nineteenth Century England
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Dr Francesca Carnevali
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About
My PhD research will fill a gap in the historiography of women’s economic endeavours in the mid to late nineteenth century by revealing women who owned their own enterprises, the types of businesses that they owned, their geographical location within the town and also the methods that they used to conduct their businesses, for example advertising. I will also seek to discover more information about the business owner’s personal lives, including details of both their familial and non-familial networks, the value of their estates and the assets and methods of distribution employed.
I will then use female business owners as a case study to show that the historiographical tradition of using gendered occupations and employment as a method of describing social norms and expectations in the nineteenth century middle classes is both insufficient and inaccurate. I will do this by demonstrating that female business owners conducted themselves in the same way as male business owners through their business practices and also in the methods that they used to distribute their estates upon their decease. Therefore this PhD will not simply fill a gap in the historiography of women’s history by writing about female business owners but will also seek to challenge the way in which gender and occupation have been used to define nineteenth century society.
