Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers the process and the means that enabled British women to find an occupational place in the English gas industry and combines the history of women with that of business, labour and consumer culture. It explores how the gas women's carefully constructed professionalism was simultaneously challenged and strengthened by the influx of female replacement workers in the gas industry. The book also considers the means and methods used by the gas industry to manufacture consumer consensus among its female customers from the late 1880s to the interwar years, assessing the overall social effect of gas technology on the English home. It examines the lady demons' constrained attempts to reconcile definitions of Victorian femininity with their personal work experiences in the public sphere, as showroom demonstrators and door-to-door sales representatives.