“I Am a Farmer and Do Other Chores of Womenfolk”: Uncovering Women’s Work in Rural Southern Europe: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Urbino, Italy

Women’s work in the past has long attracted scholarly attention, yet many aspects remain unexplored or contested. This is due to the methodological challenges of studying the theme, to the very definition of work for people in the past and contemporary scholars, to the under-recording of female activities in the sources and the inadequacy of occupational labels to capture multiple activities. This article contributes to current debates about the best methods for obtaining accurate data on women’s work, by presenting results from a research project based on nineteenth-century criminal trial records from Urbino, Italy. We focus on the self-presentations of the people questioned by the judges in relation to work. We also use the “verb-oriented method” to gather data on the activities mentioned in the testimonies. Our results show the inadequacy of traditional dichotomies (domestic/non-domestic, unpaid/paid, reproductive/productive labour), for understanding preindustrial societies and gender roles. By providing accurate data that challenge the assumption that Italian women were not involved in the labour market and in paid productive activities, this article also contributes to the debate on the “little divergence” between the economic development of northern and southern Europe and the role of women in economic growth.