Gendered Capitalism is a unique combination of interdisciplinary research—including business history, economic cultural history, management studies, international business, women's history, gender studies, and the history of technology—from a comparative and global perspective. Paula de la Cruz-Fernández offers a study of international business as much as of the home insofar as it explains gendered marketing structures and gender-specific advertising strategies by using the case of the sewing machine (p. 3). This book differs from traditional works on multinational firms that look at the evolution of a parent company and assume that its branches abroad mirrored it. Instead, the book shows how a global firm adopted local business practices in order to succeed in different countries and markets. Moreover, Cruz-Fernández examines cultural definitions of domesticity and associations between sewing and embroidery, in addition to how women's labor and role in society shaped international management. In doing so, this book presents a comprehensive history of women in business.Gendered Capitalism covers a 90-year period that is relevant both to the history of international business in general and to the history of the sewing machine in particular. During this time, the transportation revolution and technological innovations transformed productive processes and communications, leading to the emergence of multinational corporations and globalization. The Singer sewing machine is a good example of technological innovation and entrepreneurship. The patented invention was successfully turned into a new tool and technology that was globally adopted as a household appliance. The Singer sewing machine became a global brand that revolutionized clothes making and embroidery while facilitating women's integration in the market. Indeed, Singer became a cultural institution.Although the sewing machine and its relevance to business and women's history are not new historical findings, Gendered Capitalism looks at two country cases, Spain and Mexico, in a novel manner. These cases are interesting for two main reasons: they were part of the developing world that was behind the more economically advanced economies, and they were the first Spanish-speaking countries where Singer established shops and depots (and remained for over a century). This book illuminates brilliantly how the firm had to adapt to each country's business culture in order to gain market share and maintain it for almost the entire time that sewing machines were an asset that allowed women to earn a livelihood. This required local expertise and the adoption of commercial and financial practices that enabled consumers to acquire their sewing machine. Likewise, it required the US headquarters to be flexible about different forms of practical business operations. The company's strategy proved successful: Singer continued to operate in each country despite political and economic turbulence arising from the Spanish-American War (1898), the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), and the Spanish Civil War (1936–39).Cruz-Fernández definitively explains how in both Spain and Mexico the sewing machine was viewed positively across the political and social spectrum. Singer sewing schools along with flexible forms of credit for acquiring their machines were crucial to this goal. For more progressive groups and female heads of households, credit plans and property rights as defined in each country allowed women to become sole owners of their sewing machines, which gave them a way to earn a living, start a business, or both while staying at home. Similarly, the sewing and embroidery advertised by Singer allowed for the promotion of the conservative values and duties of domesticity. Women, in any event, were involved in Singer as consumers and marketing experts throughout the period covered in the book.Gendered Capitalism thus successfully “puts forward a gender framework to examine the history of the multinational enterprise that places sewing and embroidery practices, which were pillars in the construction of ideas of domesticity, at the center of understanding how international business operations developed for Singer” (p. 179). Written in clear prose, the book has a solid grounding in primary sources. The author demonstrates a mastery of the methodologies and historiographies of international business history and gender history to develop interpretations that will contribute to each of these historiographies. Furthermore, Cruz-Fernández insightfully presents Singer's operations in Spain and Mexico in their respective national contexts and in global context. This book is essential reading for historians of women and gender interested in business history and the history of capitalism as well as for business and economic historians interested in learning more about gender history in Latin America and the world.
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May 14, 2024
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