A very informative and well arranged book with fascinating insights into the women’s careers of the past. I have greatly enjoyed this read and will probably recommend it to quite a few friends.

First of all, a big thank you for giving me the opportunity to get my hands on this book before its release date!

For anyone interested in diving deeper into feminism and the evolution of women’s roles, this is a perfect read. As someone who loves a good “ragency” book, I was really drawn to how it explores women’s contributions through history—not just in formal jobs, but in all the behind-the-scenes work that often goes unrecognized.

It’s one of those books that makes you rethink everything you thought you knew about women and work. It’s not just about what’s in the spotlight but about all the things women have done quietly, with so much creativity and dedication.

Well-written and straight to the point, it delivers a fresh perspective on what “work” has really meant for women over time.

I really enjoyed the fact this book shows the western evolution of women becoming part of the working class, something that is often taken for granted today. I appreciated that there were true accounts of everyday women, not just well known ones to illustrate the author’s points. The fact that some of them were journal entries or seemed like was a personable touch. It also helped me come to terms with the insane stakes women before us had to go through just to get work or complete their work, the author does a very good job of laying this all out.

I liked that it highlights types of work I personally didn’t consider significant, but were actually very impactful to a specific era. There’s aspects that don’t have anything to do with women’s work, but help paint a clearer picture of the times and what women were going through, which I found valuable.

That said, there are aspects where I get disconnected from what the author is trying to communicate, this feeling grows when I got to the end and there was no conclusion tying everything together. Which felt like a missed opportunity, since the writer had shared so much knowledge about this history of women’s work and there was room to tie it all back to present day or at the very least conclude all the impact from this evolution somehow.

Regardless, there is a wealth of knowledge provided in this book and it would make a great reference point for anyone interested in diving into this topic.

I think this book was interesting and was well-written, but a lot of minor things bothered me. For one, I feel like the chapters were randomly ordered and could be better structured under major headings (a clothing/sewing section, a food section, etc). I also didn't enjoy the random links in the middle of paragraphs and the fact that the pictures were at the very end of the book. This could just be an advanced copy thing and might be fixed in the official release. We get a very good overview of women's work, but I think having more case-study stories (for lack of a better term) would be nice. It was a decent book, just maybe not for me.

Thank you Janet Few, Pen & Sword, and NetGalley for the ARC!

informative with a nice writing style to keep one engaged. it covers an important historical topic in a way that is accessible to most audience, Focusing mostly on British women's work history, with exceptions in a couple chapters that expand a bit further. Kept me curious about each next chapter and I'm glad i was lucky enough to read this early.

I’m pretty torn about this book. I definitely could see myself having used it as a source for a paper in college, and it’s easily digestible, but especially in the first half a lot of smaller things were bothering me.
I did like that we got such a broad overview of so many kinds of women from such a range of time periods. That being said I think I may have more negatives than positives.
I think it’s within the first couple pages that the author refers to ‘ancestresses’ and then (mostly) continues that through the book. I get that it’s about women’s history, but ancestor isn’t a gendered word so ancestress was giving me the same vibes as girl boss where in creating a distinction to focus attention where there’s been a lack of it the attention isn’t equal.
The organization also bothered me. Not just directly having the websites typed out, but also things like having the chapter on glove making between the food and dairy ones, and the health related ones so far apart. It felt very jumpy, and the lack of conclusion sadly didn’t help.