Accounting for Men's Work

Multiple Employments and Occupational Identities in Early Modern England

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4493629
AutoresK Tawny Paul (0000-0002-3851-8951, University of Exeter), Tawny Paul (0000-0003-1948-196X, University of Exeter, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen85
Páginas26-46
Fecha de publicación2018-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaHistory Workshop Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1363-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-4569
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/hwj/dbx062
OpenAlexW2782098322
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas9

This article addresses the social, cultural and gendered meanings of men’s work in early modern Britain. As has long been accepted for women, men’s work should be seen as multiple rather than single-occupational focused. Drawing on the diaries of three middle-rank tradesmen from the eighteenth century, the article considers the different forms that work took, and how words denoting labour such as ‘employment’, ‘work’ and ‘business’ were actually understood. Men had a broad definition of work that challenges distinctions between labour and leisure. These various forms of work had diverse benefits, challenging narrower economic understandings of ‘value’. Work was about more than making a living: it was a source of fulfilment, status and social identity. Work’s value and contribution to identity and status changed over the course of the lifecycle. It was carried out and understood in relation to others, especially men’s wives, rather than merely supporting notions of power and independence. By applying the insights drawn from studies of female work to men’s productive activities, the article reformulates historians’ understandings of the place of work in early modern men’s lives.

Aesthetics · Identity (music) · Independence (probability theory) · Power (physics) · Relation (database) · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Work (physics) · European Political History Analysis · Gender Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes