“I Am a Farmer and Do Other Chores of Womenfolk”. Uncovering Women’s Work in Rural Southern Europe: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Urbino, Italy

Abstract Women’s work in the past has long attracted scholarly attention, yet many aspects remain unexplored or contested. This is due to the complex methodological challenges of studying the theme, to the very definition of work for people in the past and for contemporary scholars, to the under-recording of female activities in the sources and the inadequacy of occupational labels to capture the variety of their activities. This paper contributes to current debates on the best methods for obtaining accurate data on women’s work by presenting the first results of an ongoing research on the territory of nineteenth-century Urbino, Italy, based on criminal trial records. These sources are analysed focusing on the self-presentations of the people questioned by the judges, offering insights into emic understandings of work. Furthermore, testimonies are studied through the verb-oriented method to people’s activities mentioned in the testimonies are studied with the so-called verb-oriented method. The results challenge traditional dichotomies such as domestic/non-domestic; unpaid/paid; reproductive/productive, showing their inadequacy for understanding pre-industrial societies and gender roles. Our research also contributes to the debate on the “little divergence” between the economic development of northern and southern Europe and the role of women in economic growth. It provides accurate data on Italy which challenge the assumption that Italian women were not involved in the labour market and in paid productive activities, showing that they worked inside and outside, for themselves, their families and for others.