A rich exploration of the many ways women shaped the economic and cultural life of the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
This collection redefines the role of women in the development of modern capitalism, revealing their active participation as investors, entrepreneurs, theorists, and cultural producers between 1770 and 1914. Drawing on archival research and literary analysis, the essays uncover how women shaped financial systems, navigated market constraints, and leveraged sentiment, education, and capital to assert economic agency.
Bridging literary studies with social and economic history, Women, Money and Markets challenges the conventional portrayal of the marketplace as a purely rational domain, highlighting instead the emotional and relational dynamics that underpinned womens economic lives. From shareholder lists to fictional representations, contributors explore how women influenced the financialisation of the economy and contested their marginalisation in both historical records and cultural narratives.
Featuring fresh readings of authors like Wollstonecraft and Gaskell alongside lesser-known voices, this volume offers a plural and nuanced account of womens economic engagement, and its representation, across diverse contexts. It is essential reading for scholars of literature, history, gender studies, and anyone interested in the invisible hands that helped shape the modern world.
EMMA NEWPORT is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Sussex.
JOYCE GOGGIN is Associate Professor of Literature at the University of Amsterdam.
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
List of Contributors
Foreword by Alexandra Buchan-Heelas
Preface
The Structure of the Book
Acknowledgements
Editorial Conventions
Introduction
Part One: Risky Women
Chapter 1: Invisible Women: Uncovering the Female Economy and Marketplace - Janet Rutterford
Chapter 2: Art, Industry and Estate Management: Ellen Morewood (1741-1824) of Alfreton Park - Peter Collinge
Chapter 3: Protection and Education: Investment Advice for Female Investors in Fin de Siècle England - Hazel Vosper
Chapter 4: For the Love of Money: Desire and Economy in The House of Mirth (1905) - Joyce Goggin
Part Two: Economies of Feeling
Chapter 5: Mary Wollstonecraft and the Affective Economy - Catherine Packham
Chapter 6: Money and Morality in The Woman of Colour (1808) - Emma Newport
Chapter 7: Suffering without Sympathy: Economic Relations and Violence in Elizabeth Gaskells Mary Barton (1848) - Olivia Biber
Chapter 8: White hands, brown hands and the 'invisible hand: the economy of 'active sympathy in The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857) - Sarah Dredge
Part Three: Professional Conduct
Chapter 9: Gendered Professionalism and the Victorian Marketplace: Female Artists as Economic Agents in Anne Brontës Fiction - Tim Sommer
Chapter 10: Harriet Taylor Mill and the Case for Female Labour Force Participation - Janelle Pötzsch
Chapter 11: Millicent Garrett Fawcett and Popular Political Economy - Lana L. Dalley
Chapter 12: Breadwinners and Losers in Annie Thomass The Modern Housewife - Camille Stallings
