It was difficult because of the legal status of a married women and the limited property rights, for women to be involve in business or enterprise, but financing businesses as sleeping partners or creating a traditional firm, which in that period was a family partnership, were ways for wives and daughters to be involve; often filling important roles as book keeping, dealing with clients and arranging deals.
Women provided a flexible, cheap and adaptive workforce for factories and sweatshops. So, with the rapid expansion of industrialization some new technologies were adapted and modified with female workers
"Around 30-40 % of working class women contributed to their households significantly"
or because women preferred to keep their income secret are some of the reasons why there is not an exact register on women’s work, to use as evidence.
The variability across time is one of the obvious features of women’s work. During 1850’s, 60’s and 70’s female employment has been one of the higher recorded, evidencing that around 30-40 percent of working class women contributed to their households significantly, in different occupations such as: Domestic service of all kinds, textiles and clothing, metal ware, pottery and trading (confectioning, providing, cleaning and more).
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