This book examines the experiences of women in an industrializing society, not only in their paid employment, but also in the home. Both are vital to understanding the role women played in the industrial revolution in England. Jane Rendall draws upon the most recent work on the social history of the nineteenth century to consider the economic changes that brought new divisions of labour between the sexes in the working-class family and the growth of the ideal of 'separate spheres' for middle-class men and women. She shows how, by the end of the period, domestic labour, both paid and unpaid, and the responsibilities of motherhood has become the expected occupation of the majority of women.

Jane Rendall is interested in eighteenth and nineteenth century women's history and in the history of ideas. She is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of York and also teaches in the Centre for Women's Studies at York.