Abstract: Gender historians have pioneered attention to ‘doing words’ to identify otherwise invisible women’s work. Searches in court records for verbs with female subjects have documented women’s widespread participation in economic activity, often directing and managing, while playing down their unpaid care for family members. This article turns to a microhistorical source, diaries written by Peter Walkden, a farmer and Nonconformist minister living in eighteenth-century Lancashire. Walkden’s account of his farming routine and interactions with family and community incidentally describes the activities of his wife, Catherine. Evidence of her ‘doings’ identifies Catherine’s repertoire of tasks but is extended here to identify work and labour relations by the ownership of equipment, production for use or sale, and the need for occasional stand-ins when Catherine was indisposed or unavailable. Additional circumstantial evidence and other historical and modern sources enable the estimation of the frequency and duration of tasks, so providing the first breakdown of an early modern woman’s working day. Findings confirm the extent of women’s work but reinstate unpaid care as vital to the functioning of Walkden’s household, and by inference to social reproduction generally. Significantly, when Walkden himself had to provide care or pay for an understudy, it was understood as work and its value recognized.
Keywords: Female labour supply; Household production; Unpaid care work
JEL classification: N33, J16
Cite as: Jane Humphries, Microhistory and Women’s Time Use, Past & Present, 2026;, gtag025, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtag025