Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

The Experience of Domestic Service for Women in Early Modern London

by Paula Humfrey
Save 35% Save 35%
Current price ₹4,399.00
Original price ₹6,767.00
Original price ₹6,767.00
Original price ₹6,767.00
(-35%)
₹4,399.00
Current price ₹4,399.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 12-14 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Paperback
  • ISBN13: 9781138376199
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • Publisher Imprint: Routledge
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 232
  • Original Price: GBP 52.99
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 366 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Women's Studies

The late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century texts presented here describe female servants' experiences of work in early modern London. Domestics' court depositions offer qualitative evidence that female servants were an important support of emergent capitalism in the early modern metropolis. Exposed here are the contractual underpinnings of domestic service for women; the mobility that domestic servants enjoyed; and the concern that this mobility generated in the authorities. Paid domestic work has traditionally been regarded by historians simply as a pre-marital phase of women's lives. In fact, the depositions in this volume show that service was a prototypical form of female wage labour. While some women left service once they married, others relied on domestic positions as an avenue to generating income as life-long single women, as married women, and as widows. Even though they usually lived in poverty, labouring women who worked as servants in London had considerably more agency than has earlier been recognized. Female servants who deposed before London ecclesiastical and parish courts three centuries ago were mostly non-literate. Strikingly, their individual voices are clear and distinct as they present information about their working and personal circumstances.

Paula Humfrey teaches history in the online programs of Eastern Oregon University, USA, and Laurentian University, Canada.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us