Career Choices for Women in the 1850s

What if a woman had no interest in marriage and child rearing? What were the choices available in “woman’s sphere” as defined by society during that time? There were very few. She could stay home and care for her parents. If she was lucky, they might leave her some property she could live on or turn into a boarding house.

According to woman’s rigidly defined role in society, a woman’s work revolved around domestic life, housekeeping, childcare or religion. She could be a schoolteacher, nurse, midwife, dressmaker, or shop keeper. There were a number of successful woman-owned shops in West Chester according to the Directory of the Borough of West Chester for 1857. Probably the most prominent one was Mrs. L.A.W. Pyle’s confectionary. Some others include: Jane Jackson milliner, Mary Ann Mellon tailoress and Ann Rogan dry goods and trimmings store.

However, some women were getting involved in new technologies. These new areas emerged without prohibitions on women or rules restricting them. One such area was telegraphy. A young woman named Emma Hunter was the telegrapher for the Atlantic & Ohio Telegraph Company in West Chester. Because it wasn’t proper for a woman to work in an office, a telegraph line was installed in her home where she worked.

Naturally, the other new technology that interests me most is photography. A number of women early on had studios in West Chester, namely, daguerreotypists Sally Hewes in 1850 and Hettie Painter in 1851. Out in the Kennett- Marlborough area there was Ann P. Baily from whom there is one excellent example of an ambrotype made in 1855. Learn about Ann Baily’s career choice in her biography here.