ABSTRACT
Women workers, as we have seen, were excluded from opportunities in many mushrooming industries by the attitudes of male trade unionists. In the professions too, women were losing ground that they had long held. In the eighteenth century there were many women auctioneers, booksellers at;1d printers. In what then passed for the medical sciences there were many women · oculists, dentists and surgeons. The Comp/eat Serving Maid, a book of 1700, warned that all housekeepers should have 'a competent knowledge in Physick and Chyrurgery, that they may be able to help their mained, sick and indigent Neighbours: for commonly, all good and charitable ladies make this a part of their Housekeepers business'.
