EH431 Half Unit
Women in Economic History
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Dr Anne Ruderman
Availability
This course is available on the MSc in Economic History, MSc in Economic History (Research), MSc in Financial History, MSc in Global Economic History and MSc in Political Economy of Late Development. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
How to apply: All Economic History courses are controlled access and capped. Priority will be given to students for whom the course is within their programme regulations.
All course choices submitted before the deadline will be considered. It is advisable that students submit a statement in support of their course choices as these will be used to allocate places where a course is oversubscribed.
Deadline for application: First round offers will be sent on Monday 29 September 2025. Students who submit their course choices after the deadline and students wishing to take an Economic History course as an outside option will be waitlisted initially and informed by Wednesday 1 October 2025 whether they have been successful.
Once an offer has been sent, you have 48 hours to accept it before it times out. Once an offer has timed out, it will be re-allocated to someone on the waitlist. In all cases, it is strongly advised that you have an alternative course choice as a back-up in case you are unable to secure your first choice.
For queries contact: If you have any questions, please contact the MSc Programmes Officer (o.harrison1@lse.ac.uk) A list of all taught master's courses in this Department are listed on LSE's course guide webpages. Guidance on how to apply to individual controlled access courses can also be found on LSE for You.
This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access) and demand is expected to be high. This may mean that you are unable to get a place on this course.
Course content
This course will explore the role of women in economic history, as economic actors, labor market participants and early founders of the discipline. As such, it will take a broad look at the economic activity of women, as well as the structures and institutions that have governed socioeconomic aspects of women's lives, from employment to marriage to savings and retirement. This course will consider the economic history of women from the Renaissance to the recent past, looking at differences and similarities between Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. It will look at themes such as women and work, invisible labor, women as productive and reproductive entities under slavery, female slave owners, medicine and women, the gendering of professions, and property rights. It will examine, for example, the dowry bond market in Renaissance Florence, female land-ownership in pre-colonial Gambia and the so-called "mental load" that professional women face in household management in the twenty-first century United States.
Teaching
20 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.
This course will be taught over 10 two-hour seminars in the Winter Term.
Formative assessment
Students will be expected to produce 1 annotated bibliography, 1 outline and 1 analysis of sources in the Winter Term.
Indicative reading
- Hughes, Diane Owen. (1978) “From Brideprice to Dowry in Mediterranean Europe.” Journal of Family History 3, no. 3: 262-96
- Ogilvie, Sheilagh. (2004). “How Does Social Capital Affect Women? Guilds and Communities in Early Modern Germany,” American Historical Review, 109.2: 325-359
- Jones-Rogers, Stephanie (2019). They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South, New Haven: Yale University Press
- Candido, Mariana P., and Eugénia Rodrigues (2015). “African Women's Access and Rights to Property in the Portuguese Empire.” African Economic History 43: 1–18.
- Dublin, Thomas, (1994). Transforming Women’s Work: New England Lives in the Industrial Revolution, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- Brinton, Mary (1993). Women and the Economic Miracle: Gender and Work in Postwar Japan, Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Khan, B. Zorina (1996) “Married Women’s Property Laws and Female Commercial Activity: Evidence from United States Patent Records, 1790-1895,” Journal of Economic History, 56, no. 2: 356-88.
- Daminger, Allison (2019) "The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor," American Sociological Review 84, no.4: 609-633.
Assessment
Project (90%, 4000 words)
Course participation (10%)
This course includes the following threshold element(s) linked to the Project, failure to submit these elements will result in 5 marks being deducted from the final Project grade for each threshold element:
1. Research Log
Key facts
Department: Economic History
Course Study Period: Winter Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 20
Average class size 2024/25: 20
Controlled access 2024/25: NoCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Leadership
- Self-management
- Team working
- Application of information skills
- Communication