Girlhood in Eighteenth-Century Britain: The Working Girl

This book draws on a wide range of sources to provide the first comprehensive account of the experience of eighteenth-century working girlhood across all regions of Britain, examining the lifecycle stage of growing up for the middling and lower classes as they worked and prepared for a life of work.

Studies of history have often tended to slide over the distinct history of girls in its focus on women’s history, merging their stories into broader narratives. This volume continues the more recent historical reclamation of girls and girlhood as a useful analytical tool, while also specifically addressing the lacunae in histories of eighteenth-century working girls. Examining the role of home, schools and apprenticeships in girls’ upbringing, it considers how mobility shaped their trajectories. Furthermore, it examines sociability, love, sex and the ’misfortunes’ they might encounter. An underpinning message is the active role that girls played in shaping their own destinies using whatever tools were at their disposal.

Written in an accessible style and bridging gaps in the literature, this volume is a valuable resource for university courses in the history of childhood and women’s studies/history.

Deborah Simonton is Associate Professor of British History, emerita, University of Southern Denmark, Visiting Professor, University of Turku, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She is co-editor of the Routledge History of Loneliness (2023), and author of Gender in the European Town (2023).