2026-05-27
46 分钟It's probably one of the greatest myths of economic history that women have spent most of history as housewives.
The average woman had no choice but to work, but you were locked out of the banking system.
So you really had nowhere to put your hard-earned savings.
And with it, no ability, of course, to earn interest on those savings, which, you know, was a great shame.
So Priscilla took people's deposits, she invested them in bonds, percent interest.
Today on the Story of Money, we are going to go back to the year 1798 in London.
The early decades of the British Industrial Revolution.
There are power looms and canals and factories powered by steam engines.
The city's population is exploding.
And it's a time of energy and opportunity.
Absolutely.
And in fact, in many ways, it's a lot like the emerging markets today.
And the story we're going to tell is very salutary in that respect.
But the key point to note, or to start with, is that although there were extraordinary opportunities
for men at the time, women had far fewer opportunities, particularly married women.
Yeah, and this was a time when thousands of people were migrating from the countryside to the new industrial towns,
and they were being paid relatively decent wages in cash for the first time pretty much in history,
but had nowhere really to put the money that they didn't spend right away.
Again, there's a lot of parallels with what's happening in the emerging markets now.
So just for a moment, though, imagine you're a hardworking woman in the late 1700s.