“How Many Trades Have I to Live By”: Women’s Informal Labor in Thomas Heywood’s The Wise-Woman of Hogsdon

Abstract

ABSTRACT Thomas Heywood’s play The Wise-woman of Hogsdon (1604) offers a unique dramatic representation of women’s informal labor that departs significantly from contemporary theatrical portrayals of working women. While city comedies of the period typically ridiculed or morally condemned women’s commercial activities, Heywood’s sympathetic portrayals of The Wise-woman – who openly profits from multiple trades and successfully resolves the play’s conflicts through her entrepreneurial skills – suggests an emerging theatrical discourse that recognized the economic and social value of women’s informal work. Through the Wise-woman’s character, Heywood’s play not only documents the vital role of women’s underground economy in early modern London but also challenges the period’s dominant dramatic conventions that relegated working women to roles of either comic relief or moral corruption.