Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France

Daryl M. Hafter, Nina Kushner

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9780807158333
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: French History
• Index: History

In the eighteenth century, French women were active in a wide range of employments-from printmaking to running whole-sale businesses-although social and legal structures frequently limited their capacity to work independently. The contributors to Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France reveal how women at all levels of society negotiated these structures with determination and ingenuity in order to provide for themselves and their families. Recent historiography on women and work in eighteenth-century France has focused on the model of the "family economy, " in which women's work existed as part of the communal effort to keep the family afloat, usually in support of the patriarch's occupation. The ten essays in this volume offer case studies that complicate the conventional model: wives of ship captains managed family businesses in their husbands' extended absences; high-end prostitutes managed their own households; female weavers, tailors, and merchants increasingly appeared on eighteenth-century tax rolls and guild membership lists; and female members of the nobility possessed and wielded the same legal power as their male counterparts. Examining female workers within and outside of the context of family, Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France challenges current scholarly assumptions about gender and labor. This stimulating and important collection of essays broadens our understanding of the diversity, vitality, and crucial importance of women's work in the eighteenth-century economy.

INDEX

Abbeville, 191, 192

Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, 92, 93, 94, 95–96, 98–105

Académie Royale des Sciences, 190, 196

Academy of St. Luc, 92–98, 97, 100–101, 104, 105, 106, 108

account books, women keeping, 2, 44, 81–83, 153, 158, 180, 225

actresses, elite prostitutes as, 55–56

agriculture: capitalism and, 159, 166–167

invention of reaper, 229

market gardeners, 81, 155, 159, 167, 226

Aix, 17, 18, 23–25, 28, 126n3

Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’, 106

Alençon, 119, 169

Amiens, 20, 184

Angiviller, comte d’, 94, 104

annuities (rentes), 59

apothecaries, 44, 163, 166

aristocratic women, 224. See also lordship, female

Arkwright spinning device, 195–196

artists, female: in Academy of St. Luc, 92–98, 100–101, 104, 105, 106, 108

in Corporation of Painters and Sculptors, 92, 93, 95–97, 99, 108

deterioration of women’s public position and, 103

and exceptionalism, 91–93, 108

as family members of male artists, 98, 100, 101, 103, 105, 106

and foreignness, 102–103, 103–104

and genre hierarchy, 98, 101, 111n21

income levels and social standing, 92, 93–94

lodgings in Louvre, 94

male artists’ regard for, 105

number and activity of, 91–92

in Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, 92, 93, 94, 95–96, 98–105

technological developments by, 230

unincorporated, independent artists, 92, 105–108

woodblock cutters, 84–85

Astraudi, Rosalie, 55, 56

ateliers des femmes (women’s workshops), 216–217

Autun, 156, 161

Auxerre, 155–156, 158–159, 161, 167

Avallon, 152, 155, 156, 158–159, 161, 166

Avignon, 28, 153, 174n53

bakers, 46, 79, 82, 153, 158–159, 168, 170, 173n29

banalities, feudal, 22–27, 31n34

bankruptcy, 55, 86, 89n25, 129n41, 146, 152, 220n10

Basseporte, Madeleine de, 94

Basville, Chrétien-François de Lamoignon de, 124

béates, 185

Beaume, Pierre, 124

Beaumont, Demoiselle (Suzanne Elizabeth LeGrand), 68

Bellone (ship), 137–142

Benoist, Marie-Guillemine, 107

Berg, Maxine, 188, 196

biens adventifs and biens paraphernaux, 18, 21

billiard parlors, 8, 152, 156, 165

Biron, Pierre Allouard, 30n25

blacksmiths, 80, 84, 85, 152

Blaufarb, Rafe, 11, 12, 16, 235

Bongie, L. L., 75n47

bookbinding, 155, 156, 164, 209

booksellers: and development of capitalism, 152, 155, 156, 161, 163–166, 168–169, 174n51, 175n57

guilds and licensing, 114, 115, 117–119, 126n3, 128n18. See also printing

Bordeaux: Academy of Art, 99

and development of capitalism, 154, 159, 169, 175n64

marriage contracts from, 129n36

matrimonial regime in, 17

printing in, 115, 118, 124, 169, 175n64

transatlantic marriages and, 136, 137, 138, 139, 226

Boullongne, Geneviève, 98, 100

Boullongne, Madeleine, 98

Bourges, 184, 195

Bray, Francesca, 175n66

Brest, 37, 46

Brissart, Auguste-Simon, 58, 69, 73–74n19

Britain, 4, 99, 111n26, 157, 167, 170, 172n24, 185, 187–188, 189, 190, 195, 204–205, 228

British Royal Academy of Art, 99

Brittany: and barometers, 163

capitalism in, 152, 159, 161, 229

inheritance law in, 33, 38, 41–42

Journal de tout ce qui s’est passé en Bretagne depuis un an, 168–169

marital community of property in, 42

Masonic lodges in, 172n19

women’s work identity in, 35–36. See also specific towns

Brittany Affair, 125

Broons, 48

brothels, 53–54, 55, 72n3

Brunelle, Gayle, 82, 88n6

Buffon ironworks, 189

Bureau de Commerce, 190, 196

Bureau de la Librairie (Royal Office of the Book Trade), 116, 117–118, 119, 120, 121

Burstin, Haim, 4, 195

butchers, 38, 39, 79, 84, 155, 158, 159, 173n29, 179, 180

cabinetmakers (ébenistes), 82, 155, 164

café owners, 154, 155, 156, 159, 165, 166, 226, 229

calicoes (toiles peintes), 187, 192–193

capital, sexual. See sexual capital

capitalism: agriculture and, 159, 166–167

deterioration of women’s public position and, 114

division of tasks fostered by, 14n20

economic and commercial expansion of eighteenth century and, 2, 154–158

and expansion of education and professions, 156, 161–163

family businesses and, 83, 158

government recognition of development of, 169–170

mobility of goods and people, 166...

Table of contents

• COVER
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• THE PHENOMENON OF FEMALE LORDSHIP
• WOMEN AND WORK IDENTITY
• THE BUSINESS OF BEING KEPT
• THE POWER OF WIVES
• MANY EXCEPTIONAL WOMEN
• PRINTER WIDOWS AND THE STATE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE
• WOMEN AND CONTRACTS IN THE AGE OF TRANSATLANTIC COMMERCE
• WOMEN AND THE BIRTH OF MODERN CONSUMER CAPITALISM
• FRENCH INDUSTRIAL GROWTH IN WOMEN’S HANDS
• WOMEN IN THE PARIS MANUFACTURING TRADES AT THE END OF THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
• AFTERWORD
• CONTRIBUTORS
• INDEX