Ivy Pinchbeck (9 April 1898 – 10 May 1982) was a British

economic An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

and

social historian Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to co ...

, specialising in the history of women. Her book of 1930, ''Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, 1750 – 1850'' was a pioneering effort in women's history, and highly influential in the next half-century. She concluded that women overall gained more than they lost from the Industrial Revolution, as compared to the dangers and unsanitary and harsh working conditions of the previous era.

Life

Pinchbeck studied at

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

, graduating B.A. in 1920; at

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

, M.A., 1927 and Ph.D., 1930. She taught in the Department of Sociology, Social Studies and Economics at Bedford College,

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

from 1929 to 1961. In her acclaimed work, ''Women workers and the industrial revolution, 1750–1850'', based on her Ph.D. thesis, Pinchbeck argued that in the long run, the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

increased women's employment opportunities, was beneficial to women's social and economic position and therefore was a liberating factor. This conclusion was in contrast to the earlier view of Alice Clark, who believed that industrial

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

was responsible for the exclusion of women from paid employment, and thus played a crucial role in modern women's oppression. Pinchbeck's two-volume ''Children in English Society'', co-authored with Margaret Hewitt, a former student, described the conditions of poor and orphaned children, from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, and discussed how legislative and voluntary responses to them had changed over the period.

References

Bibliography

*I. Pinchbeck, ''Women workers and the industrial revolution, 1750-1850'' (1930) *I. Pinchbeck, ‘Social Attitudes to the Problem of Illegitimacy’ in ''British Journal of Sociology'', 5 (Dec,1954), pp. 309–323 *I. Pinchbeck, ‘State and the Child in Sixteenth-Century England’ in ''British Journal of Sociology'', 7 (Dec,56), pp. 273–285 and 8 (Mar,57), pp. 59–74 *I. Pinchbeck with M. Hewitt, ''Children in English Society. 2 vols'' ( 1969)

Life

References

Bibliography

Further reading