Melanie Buddle

Throughout history, Western women have inhabited a conceptual space divorced from the world of business. But women have always engaged in business. Who were these women, and how were they able to justify their work outside the home? The Business of Women explores the world of those women who embraced British Columbia’s frontier ethos in the early twentieth-century. In this detailed examination of case studies and quantitative sources, Buddle reveals that, contrary to expectation, the typical businesswoman was not unmarried or particularly rebellious, but a woman reconciling her entrepreneurship with her identity as a wife, mother, or widow. This groundbreaking study not only incorporates women into the history of business, it challenges commonly held beliefs about women, business, and the marriage between the two.