NCJ Number
216504
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 46 Issue: 6 Dated: November 2006 Pages: 1058-1072
Date Published
November 2006
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This study used financial literature, newspaper debates, and popular fiction to show how middle-class women in Victorian England (19th century) were victimized by white-collar crime.
Abstract
Since Victorian women of the middle class were denied opportunities to earn their own living, they were largely dependent on income from investment capital. Consequently, women composed a significant portion of investors during the 19th century, particularly in the key economic areas of banking, railways, and insurance; however, stereotypical roles for women restrained them from becoming directly involved in how their investments were managed. This left them vulnerable to multiple forms of fraud and deception. By the late 19th century, women's exploitation and victimization in the financial world produced a mounting feminist critique of investment capitalism and a belief among women that it was their responsibility to reform an economy in which they were marginalized and on which they were dependent. Some women writers, such as Catherine Gore and Charlotte Riddell specialized in novels about finance and big business. Gore, a British merchant's daughter, wrote a series of novels on the theme of capitalism and social mobility, "Men of Capital" (1846) and "Mammon, or the Hardships of an Heiress" (1855). She often focused on how women's lives were shaped by the unpredictability of the financial market and economic forces over which they had little control. Riddell dramatized the world of commerce in popular works like "Mitre Court" (1885) and "The Head of the Firm" (1892). Two of the 19th century's most popular and prolific novelists, Ellen Wood and Emma Marshal, were themselves bankers' wives who took up writing out of financial necessity when their husbands' businesses failed. 72 references