| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the WHQ online. About 171 words from this article are provided below; about 387 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to the Western Historical Quarterly, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to the Western Historical Quarterly, you can:: • subscribe here.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Western Historical Quarterly (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Western Historical Quarterly.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Capital Intentions: Female Proprietors in San Francisco, 1850–1920. By Edith Sparks. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. xv + 329 pp. Illustrations, charts, tables, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $59.95, cloth; $19.95, paper.)

Edith Sparks's expert mining of the fragmentary traces of San Francisco's nineteenth- and early-twentieth century female proprietors in bankruptcy court records, census data, credit reports, city directories, advertisements, memoirs, letters, and diaries brings to light the vital role "economically active women" played in the city's "business of everyday life" (pp. 18, 5). Her study, grounded in social history methodology, is organized around finding out who female proprietors were, what motivated them to go into business, the kinds of businesses they operated, and the types of successes and failures they encountered in a volatile, at times hostile, urban economy. As such, it functions as a "detailed, micro-level study of women's specific practices as female proprietors" that is firmly situated within the macro currents of local and national economic forces (p. 17).

. . .

There are about 387 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.