Reassessing Women’s Participation in Entrepreneurial Activities in the Nineteenth Century

A Review of the Literature

Bibliographic Data

ID16904473
AuthorsSonia Baijot (Université Jean Moulin Lyon III), Charlotte Le Chapelain (Maison des Sciences sociales et des Humanités - Lyon St-Étienne)
Year2022
Volume12-3
Pages405-442
Publication date2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOEconomia (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2113-5207 • E-ISSN: 2269-8450
PublisherOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/oeconomia.13358
OpenAlexW4313322167
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited67

Nineteenth-century businesswomen were almost entirely neglected, the historiography having adopted the hypothesis of the withdrawal of women from the business sphere after the eighteenth century. A growing body of literature is challenging this view, claiming that women did in fact actively contribute to the industrialization process and occupied key positions as investors and entrepreneurs, and revealing the constant and non-negligible presence of women at the head of businesses. This article reviews recent literature on women entrepreneurship in the nineteenth century. On the one hand, we analyze the reasons invoked by recent studies in order to explain why female entrepreneurship has so long remained ignored. The separate spheres ideology, the rise of industrialization, legal systems, the narrow definition of entrepreneurship and the issue of the sources might have contributed to maintain the idea that women would have withdrawn from business. On the other hand, we review the methods used in the recent revisionist literature in order to identify women entrepreneurs in the historical records and to assess the importance of their participation in entrepreneurial activities. Whereas some sources (tax rolls, censuses, directories, articles of association, etc.) help drawing general conclusions about female entrepreneurship supporting quantitative research, others (private family papers and objects, newspapers and advertisements, public and legal records) are particularly helpful for qualitative investigations permitting to draw in-depth portraits of these women

Business history · Economic history · Economics · Entrepreneurship · Historiography · Ideology · Industrialisation · Newspaper · Political science · Politics · Portrait · Public sphere · Separate spheres · Sociology · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law