“Transatlantic Women at Work: Service in the Long Nineteenth Century”; Virtual Conversations 2021

The current dual crises of the global CV-19 pandemic and the (also global) renewed struggle for racial justice have turned our attention to women worldwide whose critically important service roles bring to mind and expand on their similar occupations in the long nineteenth century. Women comprise the majority of the workforce that has been deemed “essential” during the pandemic — from healthcare and social services to retail and other service sector jobs. Women have been disproportionately affected by the loss of employment, whether through involuntary lay-offs or voluntary resignation due to the need to provide “essential” care at home, most significantly as teachers of their now virtually-schooled children. Across various service horizons today, we also observe that women, especially those of color, continue as in the past to confront institutionalized discrimination, subordination, and marginalization.

Both this troubling contemporary reality and its historical precedents make clear the inherent ambiguity of women’s service. On the one hand, as Hannah Branch and Melissa Wooten have shown, service occupations may offer fields of action that enable new paths of social mobility for women; on the other, as with today’s virtual mother-teachers, such service often perpetuates domestic stereotypes, race conflicts, and class affiliationi, while also severely impacting career progression, lifetime earning potential, and ongoing emotional stress.

Studies on women and service largely focus on three main research areas: 1) women and domestic service, 2) women and service in an entrepreneurial context, and 3) women and military service. Kristina Booker, in particular, conceptualizes women in service as either engaging in such work from a humanitarian “spiritualized sense of ‘duty,’” or actually working for wages in a servant capacity.

Not as well examined, however, is the complexity of women’s service as an enabling or a disabling factor within a transatlantic context. Throughout the long nineteenth century, women in the transatlantic world were engaged in a range of service roles, including nursing, teaching, and reform causes. Many served in menial jobs with no glory or recognition, while some held leadership roles in various movements, such as antislavery, temperance, workers’ rights, woman’s rights, and community service. Several served openly with the respect of family and society, while other women were forced to disguise themselves in order to serve their chosen cause.

For a virtual workshop series, the Intercontinental Crosscurrents Network solicited considerations of the contributions of women in wide-ranging service roles in the transatlantic world during the long nineteenth century.