Gendered Capitalism: Sewing Machines and Multinational Business in Spain and Mexico, 1850-1940

Gendered Capitalism: Sewing Machines and Multinational Business in Spain and Mexico, 1850–1940, explores how gender-specific ideas and ideals about domesticity and sewing and embroidery cultures shaped the Singer Sewing Machine Company's operations worldwide. It argues that consumers and the cultural worlds of women using sewing machines for personal purposes or for the market shaped corporate organization. The book demonstrates that local Spanish and Mexican agents developed and expanded Singer's selling system, making the multinational company feel domestic. It adds to the study of international business by highlighting the complexities and multitudes of global capitalism.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 190 pages
\n Publication date: 06 May 2021
\n Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
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Gendered Capitalism: Sewing Machines and Multinational Business in Spain and Mexico, 1850 – 1940, is a comprehensive history that delves into the gendered corporation, exploring how ideas and ideals about domesticity and the cultures of sewing and embroidery, which were predominantly associated with gender, shaped the operations of the US-headquartered Singer Sewing Machine Company across the globe. This book departs from traditional production-driven and culture-neutral analyses of multinational enterprises, instead focusing on both the supply and demand sides
sides to argue that consumers, primarily women, and the cultural worlds of those using sewing machines for personal purposes or for the market, played a significant role in shaping corporate organization. While this book provides a global perspective on Singer, it also highlights the cases of Spain and Mexico to emphasize nations where the sewing machine multinational never established manufacturing operations. Casa Singer, a predominantly profitable and long-term selling and marketing operation in both countries, serves as a testament to the local agents, both men and women, who developed and expanded Singer's selling system to the extent that the multinational company was perceived as domestic, both in terms of its location and its focus on the private sphere of the home.

By bringing the cases of Spain and Mexico, along with the cultural, everyday realm of practices related to sewing and embroidery that the sewing machine was part of, to the center of the study of international business, Gendered Capitalism further reveals the intricate layers of complexities and multiplicities that constitute the history of global capitalism. This book will appeal to readers and scholars in the fields of business history, economic cultural history, management studies, international business, women's history, and gender studies.

\n Weight: 310g\n
Dimension: 152 x 229 x 16 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780367770433\n \n