What professions were open to women in the 1800's?

Question: What professions were open to women in the 1800's!?

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In the early 19th century, employment for women was fairly limited!. In both America, and the UK, teaching was the main profession open to educated women!. In America, a lot of women were employed as teachers in the public school system, though they were paid a great deal less than male teachers!.

A large number of women made a name for themselves a writers during the first half of the nineteenth century, some were very succesful!. Nathaniel Hawthorne refered bitterly to a "d---d mob of scribbling women"!. He was jealous because Maria Cummins's novel The Lamplighter sold four times a smany copies in its first month as The Scarlet Letter sold in Hawthorne's lifetime!.

For lower class women, domestic service and employment in textile mills were the main occupations open to them!. They might also do laundry work, or sewing (piecework)!. Some women kept boarding houses!.

In 1850, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to qualify as a doctor in the USA!. Nursing became a respectable job for women in both the USA and England after the reforms of Florence Nightingale!.

Many American women took over clerical jobs vacated by men during the Civil War!. After the war, they continued to be employed in clerical work, by 1900 a third of all government jobs were done by women!. The typewriter led to increased opportunities for women in office work, by 1880 half of all the stenegraphers and typists in the USA were women, and by 1900 it was three-quarters!. The telephone industry decided women were ideally suited to be switchboard operators when it found that men tended to talk back to the customers!.

The new big department stores employed many women as salesclerks, by 1900 in the USA 142,000 female salesclerks had been hired!.

In the West, many women found that they could make a great deal of money in catering!. Good cooks were in short supply, and one woman wrote home that she had made $11,000 baking bread and cakes "in one little iron skillet"!.

The labour shortage in the early West wiped out the normal rules about what jobs were appropriate for women!. They worked as barbers and advertised their services as doctors, lawyers, and real estate agents!. Nellie Pooler Chapman took over her husband's dental practice!. "A smart woman can do very well in this country" wrote one young woman to a friend back east!. "It is the only country I was ever in where woman received anything like a just compensation for work!."Www@QuestionHome@Com

Landscape architecture was a profession that was considered appropriate for upper crust ladies during the time in England and in the StatesWww@QuestionHome@Com

nurse (florence nightingale), scientist (marie curie)Www@QuestionHome@Com