Convict Maids: The Forced Migration of Women to Australia by Deborah Oxley

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Ex library copy with external stickers removed. Date due slip and borrowers pocket on inside. Book has wear to the edges and at spine top and tail. Dust jacket is in very good condition with light creasing at edges. Book is clean and binding is still very good.

Convict Maids looks at female convicts transported from Britain and Ireland to New South Wales between 1826 and 1840. Deborah Oxley refutes the notion that these women were prostitutes and criminals, arguing that they helped put the colony on its feet.

Analyzing their backgrounds, Oxley finds that they were skilled, literate, young and healthy--qualities exploited by the new colony. Convict Maids draws on historical, economic and feminist theory, and is impressive for its extensive and original research. (publisher blurb)