ABSTRACT
In 1884 Queen, The Lady’s Newspaper published an account of “Female Labour in England,” which suggested there had been a “great increase in the past ten years in the number of females engaged in various industries, while some entirely new classes of female labour have been created.” Queen compiled its list from the 1881 census (and acknowledged that the census probably underestimated numbers): “female bookbinders numbered 10,592, exceeding the men;” “female musicians and music mistresses, 11,376;” and, among others, “workers and dealers in dress, 616,425” (September 27, 1884: 313). Two years later, another periodical published an article about dressmakers that claimed a good one might earn as much as a hundred and twenty pounds per year while “those at the very top of the tree” could earn considerably more. Nevertheless while the magazine touted dressmaking as a career for women, it reminded readers that the “main diffi culty in the way of well-bred girls choosing dressmaking as a profession . . . was the question of caste.” No matter how much she might be paid she remained a tradeswoman, unlike a governess who might earn less but remain “a gentlewoman in reduced circumstances” ( Lady , December 16, 1886: 476).
