The Spinners and Weavers of Auffay: Rural Industry and the Sexual Division of Labor in a French Village (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780521322805)

The cottage industry of France enjoyed enormous growth from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Through an intensive analysis of the social and economic impact of the expansion of this female-dominated industry, Gay Gullickson broadens our understanding of the variety and complexity of proto-industrial regions and of the proto-industrial processes. Focusing on the village of Auffay, located in the pays de Caux, a thriving agricultural region, Gullickson recreates the experiences of the women and men who spun and wove for the urban putting-out merchants. Social analysis of local memoirs, government reports, notarial and judicial records, and village cahiers de doléances, enables Gullickson to offer a more nuanced and accurate view of the causes and consequences of the expansion of the cottage textile industry in the pre-factory era. Her 1987 study is further enhanced by a quantitative analysis based primarily on the reconstitution of the families of the 727 couples who married in Auffay between 1750 and 1850.

Author: Gay L. Gullickson
ISBN-10: 0521322804
ISBN-13: 9780521322805
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 11/28/1986
Pages: 268
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.24lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.75d