Women and Entrepreneurship: Female Traders in the Northern Netherlands C. 1580-1815

Danielle van den Heuvel examines the role women played in trade in the northern Netherlands. She looks at three forms of commercial enterprise in particular: street selling and stallholding, shopkeeping and international commerce. She uses evidence of female entrepreneurship originating from sources in several urban and rural areas of the country, which allows her to portray the various activities tradeswomen undertook, but also to elaborate on the differences between male and female entrepreneurs, and the reasons for the high shares of women involved in the sector.