Between 1800 and 1950 the town of Halifax grew beyond recognition. The booming mills and factories were built on the labor of women and their children, and yet their voices are almost completely missing from the history books. For the first time, this is the story of Halifax from the point of view of the women who helped shape the town.

This was a period of extraordinary change, but the battle for equality was long. In 1800, many women were illiterate. By 1900, there was a thriving girls' high school in Halifax, and yet one of its most brilliant students was denied a full degree because she was a woman. In 1939, the Vicar of Halifax called women's economic independence "an evil".

Families were large and women regularly died in childbirth. Many faced the stigma of single parenthood or else the terror of an illegal abortion. In the 1930s, the first Family Planning Clinic was set up by women in the town.

In the 1840s, women in Halifax fought for their menfolk's right to vote. In 1911, when Emmeline Pankhurst gave a stirring speech at the Mechanics' Institute, women had yet to be granted a vote of their own, leading many women to boycott that year's census and at least two to declare their occupation as "slave".

From girls in the factories to the first women stepping into public office, this book provides a fascinating and moving account of the lives of Halifax's women through the key events in the town's history.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter One: Child Labour and Girls at Work
  • Girls at Work in the Card-Making Industry
  • Girls at Work in the Textile Mills
  • Girls at Work in the Mines
• Chapter Two: An Unequal Education
  • The Early Years
  • ‘A cruel injustice.’ The Schools Inquiry Commission 1867-68
  • The Focus on Domestic Science
  • Further Education: the Halifax girls ‘not burdened with a serious education’
• Chapter Three: Women’s Health and Domestic Lives
  • Women’s Chores in the Home
  • Courtship and Marriage
  • Sexual Abuse and Harassment
  • Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Birth Control
• Chapter Four: Women in Employment
  • What Did Middle-Class Women Do?
  • Working-Class Women and Their Jobs
  • Women in Domestic Service
  • Women at Work in the Mills, Factories and Engineering
  • The Halifax Building Society: ‘No Female Shall Be Admitted to Any Office Therein’
• Chapter Five: Chartism, Radical Politics, and Votes for Women
  • Halifax Women and Nineteenth Century Radical Politics
  • The Halifax Suffragettes
  • Halifax Suffragettes and the Boycott of the Census
• Bibliography
• Citations