Daryl Hafter and Nina Kushner happily announce the publication of their new collection, Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century France (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2015). Its 14 essays show a new approach to the preindustrial family economy: demonstrating that while women contributed to support the family, their work may well have been independent and completely separate from the family endeavor. And contrary to our current understanding, some women supported themselves or were dominant members of their familial group. This readable volume would be appealing for scholars, interested readers, or as an undergraduate textbook.
Daryl M. Hafter, Professor of history emerita