This book considers patterns of women's employment in the period 1700-1850. Focusing on the county of Essex, material on the worsted industry, agriculture, fashion trades, service, prostitution, and marriage and family life will shed light on contemporary debates in history such as the sexual division of labour, controversy over continuity or change in women's employment, the importance of ideas of 'separate spheres' and 'domestic ideology', and the overall effects of capitalism on women's employment.

This book offers a detailed examination of the living arrangements and material circumstances of the poor betweeen 1650 and 1850.Chapters investigate poor households in urban, rural and metropolitan contexts, and contribute to wider investigations into British economic and social conditions in the long Eighteenth century."