Working Women in the Victorian Middle-Class Essay -- Victorian Era

Working Women in the Victorian Middle-ClassCharles Dickens character expend Abbey Potterson is some sixty and odd years old, obviously unmarried ( discharge), and a business owner (she owns a bar). Despite the fact that Victorian middle-class women were supposed to aspire to idleness, a emergence amount of women were becoming active in the 19 th century for a number of reasons. The growing number of redundant (unmarried, like Miss Potterson) and widowed women were rarely in a position to be ladies of leisure (Hudson). Although these women were almost always set out middle-class, they still strived for employment above that of the laboring classes.Evidence of Working WomenThe census, which began to embroil occupations in 1841, is the most obvious source (Hudson). However this information is often inaccurate, since the classification of womens employment was often contradictory and inconsistent. Female roleplay in a family business was sometimes deliberately excluded from the record (Hudson). wiliness directories supplement the census information. They suggest that a surprisingly high number of women ran businesses, particularly in millinery and dressmaking, in inn-keeping, provisioning, grocery trades and teaching. Trade directories from the tip also reveal examples of women running businesses traditionally associated only with men (like Miss Potterson). This minority indicates the boundaries that were being pushed regarding what was proper and improper for women to do (Hudson).Work accessible to WomenFemale employment in the 1850s, 60s and 70s was the most recorded until after instauration War II (Hudson). Domestic service of all kinds was the single largest employer of women, textile and clothing occupations were a close secon... ...fiedThe rampant vice in position society--all men know it, and women too, and both know the others know it--is neither fastness, immodesty, or impropriety of any kind it is pretence. This it is that makes our society for the most part upstart society,--burthensome, troublesome, tedious (Cope).Works CitedCope, Virginia. The Ladies. Retreived 16 borderland 2005. http//etext.lib.virginia.edu/ladies/ladyhome.htmlEmployment for Females. The Ladies. 16 April 1872. pg.35. Retrieved 16 bump into 2005. http//etext.lib.virginia.edu/ladies/pressex.htmldonkeyHudson, Pat. Womens Work. BBC History. Published 1 January 2001.Retrieved 15 March 2005. http//www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare/womens_work_01.shtmlLarsen, Ashley. Victorian Women in the Work Force. Retrieved 16 March 2005. http//jamaica.u.arizona.edu/ic/mcbride/ws200/lars-hold.htm