In a New Light: Histories of Women and Energy

Description

In the early 1970s, a German study estimated that women expended as many calories cleaning their coal-mining husbands' work clothes as their husbands did working below ground, arguably making the home as much a site of industrialized work as factories and mines. But while energy studies are beginning to acknowledge the importance of social and historical contexts and to produce more inclusive histories of the unprecedented energy transitions that powered industrialization, women have remained notably absent from these accounts. In a New Light explores the vital place of women in the shift to fossil fuels that spurred the Industrial Revolution, illuminating the variety of ways in which gender and energy intersected in women's lives in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe and North America. From their labour in the home, where they managed the adoption of new energy sources, to their work as educators in electrical housecraft and their protests against the effects of industrialization, women took on active roles to influence energy decisions. Together these essays deepen our understanding of the significance of gender in the history of energy, and of energy transitions in the history of women and gender. By foregrounding women's energetic labours and concerns, the authors shed new light on energy use in the past and provide important insights as societies move towards a carbon-neutral future. Cover IN A NEW LIGHT Title Copyright Contents Figures Introduction 1 Changing the Plot: Including Women in Energy History (and Explaining Why They Were Missing) 2 Finding Women in the History of Lighting: Candles in the English Home, 1815–1910 3 Women, Fear, and Fossil Fuels 4 Agency, Ambivalence, and the Women’s Guide to Powering Up the Home in England, 1870–1895 5 Women in Energy Engineering: Changing Roles and Gender Contexts in Britain, 1890–1934 6 Brown Bread and Washing Machines: Nostalgia and Perspective in Irish Women’s Experiences of Rural Electrification 7 Complex Agency in the Great Acceleration: Women and Energy in the Ruhr Area after 1945 8 Anthropocene Women: Energy, Agency, and the Home in Twentieth-Century Britain Bibliography Contributors Index