1st Edition
The Experience of Domestic Service for Women in Early Modern London
Edited By Paula Humfrey
Copyright 2011
232 Pages
by
Routledge
232 Pages
by
Routledge
232 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
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... Read more
Contents: Introduction; London Court of Arches records 1667-1675; Two: London Court of Arches records, 1690-1706; London Court of Arches records, 1715-1735; St Margaret Westminster settlement examinations, 1718-1725; St Margaret Westminster settlement examinations, 1726-1735; Works cited; Index.
Biography
Paula Humfrey teaches history in the online programs of Eastern Oregon University, USA, and Laurentian University, Canada.
'... Humfrey succeeds in providing an illuminating new perspective on the experiences of female domestic servants within early modern London.' New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century 'Largely taken for granted at the time on account of their ubiquity and for long ignored by later histories which recognise [servants’] indispensable contribution to society and economy of the time. Paula Humfrey’s edited collection of documents usefully contributes to the discussion of servant mobility, sexuality, literacy, privacy, wages, the feminisation of the occupation, neighbourhood networks, honour and reputation, and much more besides.' Southern History '... provide[s] a wide range of accessible source materials for term papers and research projects, and would thus be worthwhile for libraries to purchase.' Sixteenth Century Studies
