Ivy Pinchbeck was until recently Reader in Social Studies at Bedford College, University of London, and has since been a Governor of the College. In 1961 she was appointed to a Research Fellowship by the Trustees of the Nuffield Foundation to enable her to give her whole time to the completion of research for this book. Dr. Pinchbeck is the author of Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution (reissued Frank Cass, 1969), originally published in 1930 and still the standard work on the subject.
Margaret Hewitt is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Exeter. She is a Governor of Bedford College, London, and a member of the Council of Church Colleges of Education. Dr. Hewitt's previous book was Wives and Mothers in Victorian Industry (Rockliff, 1958).