Capital Intentions Female Proprietors in San Francisco, 1850-1920 |
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| Author:
| Sparks, Edith |
| ISBN: | 978-0-8078-3061-1 |
| Publication Date: | Nov 2006 |
| Publisher: | University of North Carolina Press
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | USD $112.50 |
Book Description:
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Late 19th-century San Francisco was a booming marketplace in which some women stepped beyond their roles as wives, caregivers, and homemakers to start businesses that combined family concerns with money-making activities. Edith Sparks traces the experiences of these women entrepreneurs, exploring who they were, why they started businesses, how they attracted customers and managed finances, and how they dealt with failure. Using a unique sample of bankruptcy records, credit reports,...
More DescriptionLate 19th-century San Francisco was a booming marketplace in which some women stepped beyond their roles as wives, caregivers, and homemakers to start businesses that combined family concerns with money-making activities. Edith Sparks traces the experiences of these women entrepreneurs, exploring who they were, why they started businesses, how they attracted customers and managed finances, and how they dealt with failure. Using a unique sample of bankruptcy records, credit reports, advertisements, city directories, census reports, and other sources, Sparks argues that women were competitive, economic actors, strategizing how best to capitalize on their skills in the marketplace.