The book examines female entrepreneurship in the nineteenth century. Economic history has long accorded women entrepreneurs a very minor place, relegating them to the status of historical anecdotes. The hypothesis of women's withdrawal from the business sphere after the eighteenth century has long dominated. However, this view has recently been subject to a fundamental questioning. Women did in fact actively contribute to economic development by occupying key positions in the business sphere as independent workers, investors and entrepreneurs. Businesswomen were no exception in the nineteenth century. They ran businesses of all sizes and in a wide range of industrial sectors.

This book helps to bring nineteenth-century women entrepreneurs out of invisibility, by examining their entrepreneurial practices and shedding light on the role of the legal framework in which they operated. This interdisciplinary book will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of economic history, business history, history of law, and economics and management sciences in general, interested in a better understanding of female entrepreneurship in the nineteenth century.