| Summary: | Laura Gowing's book, "Ingenious Trade: Women and Work in Seventeenth-Century London," challenges the common understanding of premodern women's labor as flexible, informal, and invisible. Gowing focuses on girl apprentices and the women who trained them, arguing that the growing number of female apprentices in the seventeenth century demonstrates the value placed on training girls in English society. The book explores the prominence of women in the Royal Exchange, the rise of female apprentices, the decline of early modern guilds, and the work and behavior of female apprentices. Gowing's extensive archival work sheds light on the experiences of these women and challenges existing historical narratives.
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