Women’s Employment Society for Promoting the Employment of Women Annual Report on Vocational Training and Paid Work, 1880

Women’s Labor Employment

Pamphlet

Society for Promoting the Employment of Women. The Twenty-First Annual Report of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, 1880, documents an organization established to expand women’s access to vocational training and paid employment in occupations beyond the limited fields conventionally open to them in nineteenth-century Britain. Founded in 1859 through the work of women’s rights reformers including Jessie Boucherett, Barbara Bodichon, and Adelaide Anne Procter, the Society connected demands for women’s economic independence with practical programs for training and placement. Its purpose is stated directly in the report: “The Society is formed for promoting the Training of Women and their employment in industrial pursuits.”

Society for Promoting the Employment of Women. The Twenty-First Annual Report of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, April, 1880. London: Printed by John Bale & Sons, [1880]. First edition. The thirty-page report records the Society’s work in preparing women for specific occupations and discusses the training required to enter fields including wood carving, hospital nursing, and hairdressing, among others. Rather than arguing only for women’s abstract right to employment, the report records the practical means by which the Society attempted to open occupations through instruction and professional preparation. Its annual accounting of such programs shows how an organization founded by members of the mid-century women’s rights movement addressed the economic restrictions confronting women through vocational initiatives maintained over more than two decades.

The report appeared twenty-one years after the Society’s establishment and shortly after its incorporation in 1879, when campaigns for women’s property rights, education, professional access, and suffrage were expanding the legal and economic questions surrounding women’s independence. The Society’s emphasis on training addressed one concrete barrier to entry into skilled occupations: women could not compete for work from which they had also been excluded from acquiring the necessary preparation. 30 pages. Original paper wrappers, measuring 8 x 5 inches. Light pencil marks in the margins; otherwise very good condition. At the time this description was prepared, no copies were recorded in American institutions in the OCLC search consulted; institutional holdings and OCLC records remain subject to revision.

Item #16571

Price: $225.00