Women throughout history have inhabited a conceptual space divorced from the world of business. Historians and social commentators have consequently tended to overlook the experiences of women entrepreneurs. Who were these women? What types of businesses did they establish? And how did they justify their work outside the home?

The Business of Women explores the lives of entrepreneurial women - how they were defined and how they defined themselves - in early twentieth-century British Columbia. Contrary to expectation, the profile of the businesswoman that emerges from both...