The final session of our Spring Seminar Series will take place on Tuesday, 21 April at 4pm GMT.
Our speaker for the session is Dr Kellie Bradshaw, a Professor of History from Germanna Community College in Virginia. Kellie who will be talking to us about her research on women shop assistants in London pre-1914.
If you are interested in hearing Kellie speak about her research, please do sign up for the session here. The seminar will run as an online-only zoom webinar comprising a 40-minute paper and a Q&A session.
About the Paper
‘Controlled Leisure: Women Shop Assistants in London before 1914’ examines the world of London’s shop assistants during the period marked by the emergence and expansion of department stores, which employed thousands of workers. The new department stores altered the city’s landscape and transformed a previously skilled occupation into an unskilled one. Although shop work was regarded as respectable and undemanding, the reality for many shop assistants involved long working hours and low wages. Positions frequently required residence in company-provided dormitories, where workers exercised little autonomy over their living conditions. Employers often sought to regulate employees’ leisure time by providing in-house amenities and organised, supervised activities. Examining the experiences of women shop assistants in London offers valuable insight into the limited opportunities available to women before World War I, as well as the ways in which working women attempted to both make a living and have meaningful lives.
About the Speaker
Dr. Kellie Bradshaw is a historian who focuses on the lives, labour, and social conditions of working women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She has an MA in History from the College of Charleston in South Carolina, and earned a PhD in History from George Mason University, Virginia. Kellie teaches world history at Germanna Community College, Virginia. Her current research focuses on comparing the lived experiences and working conditions of women shop assistants in New York and London.