Publisher's Synopsis
First published in 1919 "Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century" was one of the first books to engage with the problem of women's history. In it Alice Clark documented the day-to-day lives of women from all socio-economic groups in both town and country who combined work with the responsibilities of domestic life. Now republished with a new introduction by Amy Erickson, who addresses Clark's historiographic significance and provides an overview of present scholarship, the book remains a resource for modern day historians and feminist critics. Using memoirs, letters and household accounts, it documents the activities of gentry women who managed vast households and supervised the administration of family estates; it also draws on less accessible sources such as quarter sessions' petitions, court records and parish accounts, to uncover the reality of poorer women's working lives.
