"This book brings together research into women's lives in England between 1760 and 1914. Using diaries, letters and memoirs as well as social and statistical research of every sort, it looks at life-expectancy, sex, marriage and childbirth, and work inside and outside the home, for all classes of women. It charts the poverty and struggles of the working class, as well as the leadership roles of middle-class and the elite women. Susie Steinbach also considers the part played by religion, education and politics in women's lives - and not least the key contribution that women made to the British Empire : how imperialism shaped women's lives and how women also moulded the Empire." "In 1760 few women could read. By 1914 almost all could, most were educated and a few even attended university. Votes for women were not achieved until after the First World War but the hard work was done before, and from the 1850s the advent of organised feminism had begun to improve women's lives more than any other force during the long nineteenth century." "Yet much remained the same. The ways things changed - and the ways they did not - are the subject of this book."--BOOK JACKET.