"Breaking Barriers, Thinking Bigger"

My discussion will consider the value of collaboration and embracing a global viewpoint for the analysis of nineteenth-century women’s business history. Despite significant support from the business history community, the study of female entrepreneurs in the United States remains a relatively small field. Research on women in business around the globe has been even more limited, and often dependent on U.S., British, or European models. The collaboration of scholars in an edited volume and associated workshop broke barriers and encouraged unexpected connections. Although some of the participants knew each other well, others were familiar only by reputation, and still others were newcomers to the specialization. A wide range of nineteenth-century women’s business activities – from piracy in China, to management in Japan, to philanthropic endeavors in Turkey, to laundering in Mexico, to cookbook authorship in Australia, complicated our definition of business. At the same time, patterns of female proprietorship (particularly shop-keeping) were clearly evident when comparing Europe, North America, and the British Empire. Comparisons across continents and cultures were intriguing, though we realized that we were only taking the first steps in what must be a long-term process. For example, although our group represented research on regions around the globe, areas such as India and South East Asia remained under-represented. In addition, most scholars researching women in business were themselves from Europe, Britain and its former colonies, or the Americas – again, limiting the scope of our project.
Perhaps the most valuable aspect of this collaboration was less in finding answers than in formulating new, bigger questions. Our common experience of being located “on the margins” of business history, as well as the women’s history of our own regions, inspired us to think about broader issues, larger networks, and ways to shape both business and women’s history.