1st Edition

Women and Their Money 1700-1950 Essays on Women and Finance

    328 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    328 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book examines women's financial activity from the early days of the stock market in eighteenth century England and the South Sea Bubble to the mid-twentieth century. The essays demonstrate how many women managed their own finances despite legal and social restrictions and show that women were neither helpless, incompetent and risk-averse, nor were they unduly cautious and conservative. Rather, many women learnt about money and made themselves effective and engaged managers of the funds at their disposal.

    The essays focus on Britain, from eighteenth-century London, to the expansion of British financial markets of the nineteenth century, with comparative essays dealing with the US, Italy, Sweden and Japan. Hitherto, writing about women and money has been restricted to their management of household finances or their activities as small business women. This book examines the clear evidence of women's active engagement in financial matters, much neglected in historical literature, especially women's management of capital.

     

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    1. Introduction  Anne Laurence, Josephine Maltby, Janette Rutterford

     

    2. Women and Finance in Eighteenth-Century England  Anne Laurence

     

    3. Women in the City: Finanical Acumen During the South Sea Bubble  Ann Carlos, Karen Maguire and Larry Neal

     

    4. Women, Banks and the Securities Market in Early Eighteenth-Century England  Anne Laurence

     

    5. Women Investors and Financial Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Germany Eve Rosenhaft

     

    6. Accounting for Business: Financial Management in the Eighteenth Century Christine Wiskin

     

    7. Women and Wealth: The Nineteenth Century in Great Britain Lucy A. Newton, Philip L. Cottrell, Josephine Maltby and Janette Rutterford

     

    8. Between Madam Bubble and Kitty Lorimer: Women Investors in British and Irish Stock Companies Mark Freeman, Robin Pearson and James Taylor

     

    9. Female Investors in the First English and Welsh Commercial Joint-Stock Banks Lucy A. Newton and Philip L. Cottrell

     

    10. To Do the Right Thing: Gender, Wealth, Inheritance and the London Middle Class David Green

     

    11. Women and Wealth in Fiction in the Long Nineteenth Century 1800-1914 Josephine Maltby and Janette Rutterford

     

    12. Octavia Hill: Property Manager and Accountant Stephen Walker

     

    13. Female Investors Within the Scottish Investment Trust Movement in the 1870s Claire Swan

     

    14. Women Clerical Staff Employed in the U.K.-Based Army Pay Department Establishments 1914-1920  John Black

     

    15. Women and Money: The United States Nancy Robertson and Susan M. Yohn

     

    16. "Men Seem to Take Delight in Cheating Women": Legal Challenges Faced by Businesswomen in the United States, 1880-1920 Susan M.Yohn

     

    17. "The Principles of Sound Banking and Financial Noblesse Oblige": Women's Departments in U.S. Banks at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Nancy Robertson

     

    18. Women, Money and the Financial Revolution: A Gender Perspective on the Development of the Swedish Financial System, c.1860–1920 Tom Petersson

     

    19. Women’s Wealth and Finance in Nineteenth-Century Milan Stefania Licini

     

    20. The Transformation From "Thrifty Accountant" to "Independent Investor": The Changing Relationship of Japanese Women and Finance Under the Influence of Globalization? Naoko Komori

    Biography

    Anne Laurence is Professor of History at the Open University and author of Women in England 1500-1760: A Social History. Josephine Maltby is Professor of Accounting and Finance, University of York. Janette Rutterford is Professor of Finance at The Open University and author of Introduction to Stock Exchange Investment.

    "This is a first collection of writings on women’s financial history in the West… Historians and economists interested in the field will want to display the book on their shelves as a reference, and that I hope will stimulate more research in the growing field of women’s financial history." -- Business History Review (summer 2010), by Amy Floide, University of Maryland.

     

    "Moreover, taken together, this collection of essays provides a fascinating introduction into the financial behavior of women, offering further evidence to complicate the notion of separate spheres and demonstrating that rather than being helpless, risk-averse, and naive, women were resourceful, well-informed, and effective managers of the funds at their disposal." -- Journal of British Studies (July 2010), by Anne L. Murphy, University of Hertfordshire