Bound Feet, Young Hands represents the most empirically grounded and analytically bold contribution to studies of gender, labor, and economic transformation in imperial China. Based on a staggering volume of surveys, field interviews, and local sources, this meticulously researched volume persuasively illuminates the economic rationale underlying the rise and fall of foot binding, shattering multiple strands of conventional wisdom about the social and cultural milieu of restraining the mobility of young women.
Kellee S. Tsai
Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
Bound Feet, Young Hands provides a detailed, much-needed analysis of Chinese footbinding and women's labor during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Bossen and Gates break new ground in our understanding of the role and status of women's work during a period of enormous economic, political and cultural change.
Rubie S. Watson, anthropologist and former director of Peabody Museum
Harvard University
[T]his well-written and carefully argued book makes a significant contribution to both women's history and economic history in China. Linking footbinding with women's hand labor, the book brings to light the important yet largely overlooked contributions of women, and especially young girls, to the household economy and to handcraft industry prior to industrialization in China. With this groundbreaking study, images of Chinese women idling with bound feet, which has symbolized women's submission and confinement to domestic labor, should be replaced by images of young girls laboring at textiles and handcrafts for their families and China's commercial economy.
Lihong Shi
Current Anthropology