Women in trade : female advertisers in eighteenth-century French provincial towns
Résumé
In eighteenth-century Europe, increased consumption and growing demand for colonial products and “new luxuries” opened up opportunities for women to invest in business and trade. However, there are few traces in the archives of most of the women involved in urban small commerce. By analysing the Affiches (newspaper advertisements) published in Lyon, Grenoble, and Marseilles in the second half of the eighteenth century, this chapter reviews how changes in commercialization and consumerism gave women new and different opportunities for participating in trade. In particular, the Affiches invite us to reflect on the language they used, from a gendered perspective, and to compare urban society in these three cities with other European countries.