This paper shows that thinking about women’s work in alehouses can change our perception of the space. For example, women who sold ale also pawned goods from their alehouse. Does that make it a temporary pawnshop?

This paper explores three key questions: who ran the alehouse? What did they do? What was it like to be an ale seller? This includes a workshop element, where the audience can spend time with visual sources, talking about what they think it was like to work in an alehouse in the 17th century.

This paper focuses on surveillance and policing networks in 17th century alehouses. It shows that women who worked in alehouses could act as junior constables. Village lock ups were attached to many inns and large alehouses, and it was usually up to women to supervise the accused until the constable arrived – which could be a day or more.

Broadside ballads (very popular folk music in the 17th century) can tell us a lot about how people thought and spoke about drinking, drinkers, and retailers of drink. This paper looks at 69 songs, many of which can be played during a workshop element of the talk.

One of the ways we can learn about alewives in early modern England is by reading through petitions. Often, people would petition to either shut an alehouse down or keep it open, but there are plenty more nuanced examples as well. This paper shows us how people spoke to authorities about ale sellers, and the impact they had on local communities.

Some sources make it look like men were the primary ale sellers in 17th century England. However, when you start to look at the alehouse over the course of a day, it becomes clear that men were secondary players in this place of work. Women workers were present throughout the day, while men workers came in and out. The type of activities they’d do differed from morning to night. This paper takes us from 4am to 4am, looking at the types of work performed at each time of day.