Merchants and Manufacturers After 1850

Abstract

Mechanization transformed almost all sectors of production by the end of the nineteenth century, and factories grew larger and larger. Contrary to expectations, the proportion of manufactures and trading-houses run by women rose again in this period, resulting in a flat secular trend line (around 10 % of businesses). They were nonetheless running different types of businesses in the two cities (mostly garment manufactures in Lille; almost exclusively textile mills in Tourcoing), but playing the same roles as previously, from deputy husband in the shadows to free agent. They had not been pushed out of the business sphere by a separate sphere ideology, or industrialization, and their place in larger business in the long nineteenth century was characterized by continuities more than by changes.