Gender, class and the marketplace: Women\u27s work and the transformation of the public sphere in Paris, 1825-1870

This dissertation examines changes in the structures and representations of women\u27s work in Paris during a period of social, political, and economic upheaval. It traces the slow exclusion of women workers from the public spheres of work and the city, situating this process within the context of attempts to create a new system of organizing and describing a society in transition. Focusing on the working-class woman, whose symbolic importance comes from her place at the intersection of class and gender hierarchies, this dissertation argues that the nineteenth-century public sphere was re-organized along gendered lines. Each chapter explores the process of exclusion within a different public realm and among different social groups. Chapter one demonstrates how members of the Parisian Chamber of Commerce used a gendered vision of the economy to respond to criticism regarding the disorganization created by industrialization. Chapter two discusses the renovation of the city, focusing on attempts by police and public hygienists to control women\u27s market activities. Chapter three examines the attempt by liberal journalists to argue for a broader political sphere using the image of the woman worker. Chapter four traces the development of a gendered vision of the working-class family in the male working-class press, arguing that male workers increasingly favored the image of a highly-gendered nuclear family to emphasize their own lack of self-interest. Chapter five explores images of women\u27s work in feminist writings; in re-configuring the relationship between class and gender, feminist writers revealed the limits of liberal universalism. Sources include archival records on women\u27s work, prostitution, and the renovation of the city, working-class and feminist newspapers, literature on Paris and the Parisians, and writings of industrialists, social reformers, and public hygienists on work and the city