This paper presents a wage series for unskilled English women workers from 1260 to 1850 and compares it with existing evidence for men. Our series cast light on long run trends in women's agency and wellbeing, revealing an intractable, indeed widening gap between women and men's remuneration in the centuries following the Black Death. This informs several recent debates: first whether or not "the golden age of the English peasantry" included women; and second whether or not industrialization provided women with greater opportunities. Our contributions to both debates have implications for analyses of growth and trends in wellbeing. If the rise in wages that followed the Black Death enticed female servants to delay marriage, it contributed to the formation of the European Marriage Pattern, a demographic regime which positioned England on a path to modern economic growth. If the industrial revolution provided women with improved economic options, their gains should be included in any overall assessment of trends in the standard of living.

This is a unique account of working-class childhood during the British industrial revolution, first published in 2010. Using more than 600 autobiographies written by working men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Jane Humphries illuminates working-class childhood in contexts untouched by conventional sources and facilitates estimates of age at starting work, social mobility, the extent of apprenticeship and the duration of schooling. The classic era of industrialisation, 1790–1850, apparently saw an upsurge in child labour. While the memoirs implicate mechanisation and the division of labour in this increase, they also show that fatherlessness and large subsets, common in these turbulent, high-mortality and high-fertility times, often cast children as partners and supports for mothers struggling to hold families together. The book offers unprecedented insights into child labour, family life, careers and schooling. Its images of suffering, stoicism and occasional childish pleasures put the humanity back into economic history and the trauma back into the industrial revolution.

The Handbook of Historical Economics guides students and researchers through a quantitative economic history that uses fully up-to-date econometric methods. The book's coverage of statistics applied to the social sciences makes it invaluable to a broad readership. As new sources and applications of data in every economic field are enabling economists to ask and answer new fundamental questions, this book presents an up-to-date reference on the topics at hand. - Provides an historical outline of the two cliometric revolutions, highlighting the similarities and the differences between the two - Surveys the issues and principal results of the "second cliometric revolution" - Explores innovations in formulating hypotheses and statistical testing, relating them to wider trends in data-driven, empirical economics

The quality of life experienced by people in the past is one of the most important areas of historical enquiry, and the standard of living of populations is one of the leading measures of the economic performance of nations. Yet how accurate is the information on which these judgments are based? This collection of essays, written by renowned scholars in the fields of labour, wage and welfare history, cogently undermine the validity of the data that have for decades dominated the measurement of these phenomena in Britain, Europe and Asia, and provided the statistical backbone for countless descriptions and analyses of economic development, welfare and many other prime subjects in economic and social history. The contributors to this volume rigorously expose misapprehensions of long-run macroeconomic estimates of the real wage and provide a host of improved methods and data for revising and rejecting them. This volume is essential reading for anyone interested in economic and social history, economics and the application of statistical methods to historical evidence.

Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution--and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it--occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich--and why did it make large parts of the world even poorer? In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark tackles these profound questions and suggests a new and provocative way in which culture--not exploitation, geography, or resources--explains the wealth, and the poverty, of nations. Countering the prevailing theory that the Industrial Revolution was sparked by the sudden development of stable political, legal, and economic institutions in seventeenth-century Europe, Clark shows that such institutions existed long before industrialization. He argues instead that these institutions gradually led to deep cultural changes by encouraging people to abandon hunter-gatherer instincts-violence, impatience, and economy of effort-and adopt economic habits-hard work, rationality, and education. The problem, Clark says, is that only societies that have long histories of settlement and security seem to develop the cultural characteristics and effective workforces that enable economic growth. For the many societies that have not enjoyed long periods of stability, industrialization has not been a blessing. Clark also dissects the notion, championed by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, that natural endowments such as geography account for differences in the wealth of nations. A brilliant and sobering challenge to the idea that poor societies can be economically developed through outside intervention, A Farewell to Alms may change the way global economic history is understood.

A rich and detailed picture, across Britain and many other European countries, of the nature of women's factory work, the problems which arose and how women factory inspectors understood and reacted to the problems.Based on extensive original archival research both in Britain and in many European countries, this book is a comparative study of the large numbers of women who were engaged in industrial work in the western world in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, that is at a time when the industrial revolution was established and the problems caused by industrial work had become part of political debate and social discourse worldwide. It analyses the scope of female factory work, what the conditions were in such work, and what the motivations were for women to enter such employment. It reveals the composition of the female workforce as to age and marital status. In addition, it considers the first generation of female industrial inspectors, outlining the background of these inspectors, assessing to what extent were they were capable of taking on the role of protectors of women in manual work, and discussing the actions and attitudes of the female inspectors as recorded in inspection reports, biographies and contemporary discourse. Overall, the book presents a rich, detailed, comparative picture of women's factory work, contributing much to the understanding of the history of gender and class.sing to what extent were they were capable of taking on the role of protectors of women in manual work, and discussing the actions and attitudes of the female inspectors as recorded in inspection reports, biographies and contemporary discourse. Overall, the book presents a rich, detailed, comparative picture of women's factory work, contributing much to the understanding of the history of gender and class.sing to what extent were they were capable of taking on the role of protectors of women in manual work, and discussing the actions and attitudes of the female inspectors as recorded in inspection reports, biographies and contemporary discourse. Overall, the book presents a rich, detailed, comparative picture of women's factory work, contributing much to the understanding of the history of gender and class.sing to what extent were they were capable of taking on the role of protectors of women in manual work, and discussing the actions and attitudes of the female inspectors as recorded in inspection reports, biographies and contemporary discourse. Overall, the book presents a rich, detailed, comparative picture of women's factory work, contributing much to the understanding of the history of gender and class.

Who is Economic Reverberations Thomas Southcliffe Ashton was an English economic historian. He was professor of economic history at the London School of Economics at the University of London from 1944 until 1954, and Emeritus Professor until his death in 1968. His best known work is the 1948 textbook The Industrial Revolution (1760-1830), which put forth a positive view on the benefits of the era. How you will benefit (I) Insights about the following: Chapter 1: T. S. Ashton Chapter 2: Industrial Revolution Chapter 3: Black Country Chapter 4: Second Industrial Revolution Chapter 5: Alfred Cobban Chapter 6: John Habakkuk Chapter 7: Nicholas Crafts Chapter 8: Ford Lectures Chapter 9: Vic Gatrell Chapter 10: Manchester Statistical Society Chapter 11: Ragnhild Hatton Chapter 12: Economic history of Europe (1000 AD-present) Chapter 13: Theo Barker Chapter 14: Coal mining in the United Kingdom Chapter 15: John Curr Chapter 16: Jane Humphries Chapter 17: Industrial Revolution in Scotland Chapter 18: Friendly Society of Iron Founders of England, Ireland and Wales Chapter 19: John Beckett (historian) Chapter 20: Walter Minchinton Chapter 21: Grand Allies Who this book is for Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information about Economic Reverberations.

Could an institution as sacred and traditional as marriage undergo a revolution? Some people living during the so-called Age of Enlightenment thought so. By marrying for that selfish, personal emotion of love rather than to serve religious or family interests, to serve political demands or the demands of the pocketbook, a few but growing number of people revolutionized matrimony around the end of the eighteenth century. Marriage went from being a sacred state, instituted by the Church and involving everyone to – for a few intrepid people – a secular contract, a deal struck between two individuals based entirely on their mutual love and affection. Few would claim today that love is not the cornerstone of modern marriage. The easiest argument in favor of any marriage today, no matter how star-crossed the individuals, is that the couple is deeply and hopelessly in love with one another. But that was not always so clear. Before the eighteenth century very few couples united simply because they shared a mutual attraction and affection for one another. Yet only a century later most people would come to believe that mutual love and even attraction were necessary for any marriage to succeed. A Cultural History of Marriage in the Age of Enlightenment explores the ways that new ideas, cultural ideals, and economic changes, big and small, reshaped matrimony into the institution that it is today, allowing love to become the ultimate essential ingredient for modern marriages. A Cultural History of Marriage in the Age of Enlightenment presents an overview of the period with essays on Courtship and Ritual; Religion, State and Law; Kinship and Social Networks; the Family Economy; Love and Sex; the Breaking of Vows; and Representations of Marriage.

Highlights the transformative potential of including women's work in wider assessments of continuity and change in economic performance.

Why do patriarchal systems survive? In this groundbreaking work of feminist theory, Nancy Folbre examines the contradictory effects of capitalist development. She explains why the work of caring for others is under-valued and under-rewarded in today's global economy, calling attention to the organisation of childrearing, the care of other dependants, and the inheritance of assets. Upending conventional definitions of the economy based only on the market, Folbre emphasizes the production of human capabilities in families and communities and the social reproduction of group solidarities. Highlighting the complexity of hierarchical systems and their implications for political coalitions, The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems sets a new feminist agenda for the twenty-first century.