This book deserves detailed study if only to move interest away from the Victorian image of working-class domestics and middle class philanthropists, so pervasive in our idea of nineteenth century womanhood. Perhaps, just as some of us suspected, women were involved in so many more areas during the early and middle years of Victoria's reign. Helena Wojtczak fills her pages with real, live women, not always chaste and subordinate but often tough and resourceful and always interesting…

The book has sections devoted to Women's Status, Women's Occupations, Women and the law and finally Emancipation. Each section is clearly subdivided and headed so one can browse with ease. In the first section you can find information on education, marriage and divorce as well as pregnancy and childbirth. But the second section is the one that really illustrates the great variety of activities in which Sussex women were involved in the nineteenth century. From laundering to the liquor trade, from Post Office to Personal and Medical services, from toll-collectors to teaching, women were finding employment…

[H]usband beaters, prostitutes, thieves and murderers are also found among the Sussex women recorded here. And feminists are not forgotten… There is a comprehensive appendix with an extensive list of Sussex women in trade … including pubs that had female licensees and charities run by women. The author's sources were censuses, trade directories and local newspapers, all accessible to most researchers and it is interesting that she quotes the internet as 'the most accessible' source.

This was a delightful read as well as an informative one and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in family and women's history and women's role in commerce in the past.

Published in:
Open History The Magazine of the Open University History Department,
June 2004.