Editors: Ruth E. Hagengruber and Karen Green

The Journal of the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists, published by Brill, dedicates its fifth volume’s first special issue to Women’s Contributions to Political Economy During the Long Nineteenth Century. Edited by Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber (Paderborn University) and Prof. Dr. Karen Green (University of Melbourne), the issue explores the often-overlooked role of women in the development of political economy and economic philosophy.

From Classical Economics to Critique of Domestic Labour

In their joint editorial introduction, From Classical Economics to Critique of Domestic Labour, Hagengruber and Green challenge the traditional history of economics, in which women have frequently been overlooked as economic thinkers, productive agents, and contributors to economic theory. Their approach goes beyond recovering forgotten names. It raises a more fundamental question: How does our understanding of economics change when women’s perspectives on labour, property, economic dependence, domestic production, and human well-being are taken seriously? The contributions examine thinkers including Maria Edgeworth, Jane Marcet, Harriet Martineau, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and María Zambrano. Their writings illuminate the relationship between economic activity and moral philosophy, social relations, education, gender, and political power. From early interpretations of classical political economy to critiques of alienated labour and the economic organization of domestic life, these perspectives challenge conventional distinctions between productive and reproductive labour, market and household, and economic value and human flourishing.

The special issue thus invites readers not merely to expand the history of economics, but to reconsider the concepts through which economic activity itself has been understood. Learn more about the journal at Brill.