Independent Travelling Market Women from Preindustrial Copenhagen

Goods in preindustrial Denmark were often produced or bought and then sold by craftspeople travelling from market to market. This paper traces the experiences of women who had received official permission to be travelling saleswomen on the Danish island of Sjaelland (the island which encompasses Copenhagen), in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It will investigate who they were, their marital and familial status, what they sold, whether their products were bought or self-produced, and trace the routes of their travels around the island. I am particularly interested in those women who received permissions in their own names. Although many women accompanied male relatives, several travelled on their own. They even received permission to take on apprentices and travel with journeymen. This is part of a larger project which tests the degree to which women in preindustrial urban societies participated in a family economy. There is evidence that even married women in Copenhagen often worked on their own, not necessarily as part of their husbands' businesses, that they functionned as independent entrepreneurs. And although women's work was concentrated in the expected fields of food and clothing, they did also, in fact, participate – on their own – in other fields such as shipping and building trades. Travelling market women had permission to sell metal, hardware and junk, as well as the more expected clothing. (Little food, except baked goods, because food was perishable and these trips often lasted weeks, if not months.)