What is Work?

Raffaella Sarti is Associate Professor of Early Modern History and Gender History at the University of Urbino, Italy, and is a member of the editorial collective of Gender & History. Her studies address family and material culture, women’s work, domestic service, Mediterranean slavery, masculinity, and graffiti, among other topics. She is the author of numerous publications in nine languages.

“In the perspective of the preparation of the competitions, this book makes it possible to open the field of what constitutes the history of work and to build a critical point of view on its sources. It will also be of greater interest to those who want to write a reflective history of work, attentive to the categories that constitute it. Finally, at a time when the rapid development of teleworking promises to shift a large part of salaried activities to the domestic space, it offers a strong historical perspective to sharply address the pitfalls of the present.” • Le Carnet du Mouvement Social“One of the strong points of this volume is the excellent theoretical framework offered by its editors. They begin with a solid introduction that not only serves to present the contributions but also allows to pose questions and to raise the problems approached in this volume…This work of very high quality helps to understand the multiple forms of first female and then feminist mobilization regarding the definition and redistribution of the work accomplished by women in the domestic sphere.” • Clio

• List of Figures and TablesIntroduction: What is Work? Gender at the Crossroads of Home, Family, and Business from the Early Modern Era to the PresentRaffaella Sarti, Anna Bellavitis, and Manuela MartiniPART I: SETTING THE SCENE: THE FEMINIST CHALLENGES TO THE "DELABORIZATION" OF HOUSEHOLD WORKChapter 1. Family Work: A Policy-Relevant Intellectual HistoryNancy FolbreChapter 2. Productive and Reproductive Work: Uses and Abuses of an Old DichotomyAlessandra PescaroloChapter 3. The Home as a Factory: Rethinking the Debate on Housewives’ Wages in Italy, 1929-1980Alessandra GissiPART II: THE CUNNING HISTORIAN: UNVEILING AND OVERCOMING THE GENDER BIAS OF SOURCESChapter 4. The Statistical Construction of Women’s Work and the Male Breadwinner Economy in Spain (1856-1930)Cristina BorderíasChapter 5. Toiling Women, Non-Working Housewives and Rightful Citizens: Statistical and Legal Constructions of Female Work and Citizenship in ItalyRaffaella SartiChapter 6. The Complexities of Work: Analyzing Men’s and Women’s Work in the Early Modern World with the Verb-Oriented MethodMaria ÅgrenChapter 7. The Visibility of Women’s Work: Logics and Contexts of Documents’ ProductionMargareth LanzingerPART III: THE VALUE OF CARE AND UNPAID HOME-BASED WORK: THE ROLE OF THE LAWChapter 8. Regulating Home Labours: The ILO and the Feminization of WorkEileen BorisChapter 9. Family-Relations Law between "Stratification" and "Resistance". Housework and Family Law ExceptionalismMaria Rosaria MarellaChapter 10. Could Family (Care) Work Be Paid? From French Agricultural Inheritance Law (1939) to Legal Recognition of Excessive Filial Duty (1994)Florence WeberPART IV: CONCLUSIONConclusion: Can We Construct a Holistic Approach to Women’s Labor History over the Longue Durée?Laura Lee DownsIndex