Beyond big business. Rethinking the role of married women in Catalonia (Spain) in the first quarter of the 20th century

This article examines the relationship between gender and entrepreneurship in Catalonia during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The aim is to answer two key questions: How did women enter, experience, and conduct business as gendered subjects? Can we challenge the dominant narrative, derived from studies of large enterprises, that married women represented only a minority among women entrepreneurs? To address these questions, we analyze the following variables: marital status, age, number of dependent children, type of household, occupation of the husband and/or head of the household, literacy level, and place of residence. Our approach is situated within the existing debate on SMEs and the scope of female entrepreneurship. We focus on the stalls of the Terrassa Food Market, a peripheral city undergoing expansion within one of Spain’s major industrial hubs (Barcelona/Catalonia). To this end, we draw on multiple primary sources, highlighting auctions and market stall sale permits as alternative forms of evidence.