Martha Parker’s Trials: Women’s Networks in the East India Company Trade

This article examines how an entrepreneurial woman, Martha Parker, worked a private trade network within a globalizing world by using her connections and the East India Company’s structure to her advantage. Rather than viewing women’s independent commercial activity as a reaction to patriarchal inst...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of women's history Vol. 35; no. 2; pp. 30 - 50
Main Author: Brock, Aske Laursen
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.06.2023
Subjects:
17th century
Companies
Employees
Historians
Interlocking directorates
Modern society
Surface structure
Trade
Wives
Women
England
United Kingdom > UK
Asia
Europe
India
ISSN:1042-7961, 1527-2036, 1527-2036
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This article examines how an entrepreneurial woman, Martha Parker, worked a private trade network within a globalizing world by using her connections and the East India Company’s structure to her advantage. Rather than viewing women’s independent commercial activity as a reaction to patriarchal institutions, this article pays attention to the gendered agentic expectations of early modern society, which influenced how a woman’s place in the economy was understood. Martha’s experience is supported by evidence from more than one thousand petitions to the East India Company from women, which underlines how women like Martha challenged norms and institutions. They thereby contributed to the emergence of new business practices and networks that would shape the structure and significance of private trade within the East India Company’s activities. This adds significantly to our understanding of women’s relationships to both private and corporate activity within Britain’s emerging trade and empire in Asia.
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ISSN:1042-7961
1527-2036
1527-2036
DOI:10.1353/jowh.2023.a899538