Ariadne Schmidt is professor by special appointment of the History of urban culture, in particular of Leiden (the Magdalena Moons Chair, funded by the Magdalena Moons Chair Foundation) and associate professor Economic and Social History. She is also Chair of Education of the bachelor, master and research master programme History. Schmidt is a social and economic historian with a special interest in gender history, the history of diversity and inequality and urban history.

More information about Ariadne Schmidt

Spreekuur / Hours

Na afspraak / by appointment

Curriculum vitae

Ariadne Schmidt (1972) is a social and economic historian. She obtained her PhD in 2001 at the University of Amsterdam. In 2002 she was appointed at the International Institute for Social History where she directed the research project Women's Work in the Northern Netherlands c. 1500-1815, funded by NWO/ Friends of the IISH Foundation. 

In 2010 she came to Leiden University where she first worked as Program director of the N.W. Posthumus Institute, and lecturer at the section of Economic and Social History and research programme Cities Migration and Global Interdependence, subtrack Economic History. She was co-director of the research project on Crime and gender before the courts in England and the Netherlands, 1600-1800, see project website.

In 2018 she was appointed professor by special appointment of the History of Urban Culture, in particular of Leiden.

Ariadne Schmidt was affiliated with the research network 'Producing Change: Gender and Work in Early Modern Europe'. This network is designed to seize a timely opportunity to foster extensive collaborative and comparative research on the multi-lateral character of both women and men’s work in order build a new paradigm for approaching modernization in early modern Europe.

She was member of the editorial committee of Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis (1999-2001), Holland Historisch Tijdschrift (2001-2006), International Review of Social History (2003-2008), Executive editor of TSEG-Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History (2010-2017). Currently she is associate editor of Stadsgeschiedenis, and member of the editorial board of The History of the Family.

Fields of interest

Social and economic history (16^th-19^th centuries), gender history, labour history, women's work, family history, urban history, history of inequality and diversity, public history.

Selected publications

Ariadne Schmidt, Prosecuting women. A Comparative Perspective on Crime and Gender Before the Dutch Criminal Courts, c.1600-1810 (Leiden 2020).

Isabelle Devos, Ariadne Schmidt, Julie De Groot (eds.), Special section: The lure of the City. Comparative Perspectives on Singles in Towns in the Low Countries, 1600-1940; Journal of Urban History 42:1 (2016).

Julie De Groot J., Isabelle Devos and Ariadne Schmidt (Eds.) Single Life and the City 1200-1900 (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire 2015).

Ariadne Schmidt, ‘The profits of unpaid work. ‘Assisting labour’ of women in the early modern urban Dutch economy’, History of the Family 19:3 (2014), 301-322.

Ariadne Schmidt and Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, ‘Reconsidering the "First Male-Breadwinner Economy": Women's Labor Force Participation in the Netherlands, 1600–1900’, Feminist Economics, 118: 4 (2012) 69-96

Ariadne Schmidt, ‘Labour ideologies and women in the Northern Netherlands, c.1500-1800’, International Review of Social History, 56 (2011) 45-67.

Ariadne Schmidt, ‘Generous provisions or legitimate shares? Widows and the transfer of property in 17th-century Holland’, The History of the Family: An International Quaterly vol. 15 (2010) 13-24.

Ariadne Schmidt, ‘Women and Guilds: Corporations and Female Labour Market Participation in Early Modern Holland’, Gender & History vol. 21, no. 1 (2009) 170-189.

Ariadne Schmidt and Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, ‘Between wage labor and vocation: child labor in Dutch urban industry, 1600-1800’, Journal of Social History (2008) 717-736.

Manon van der Heijden, Ariadne Schmidt & Richard Wall] Broken families. Special issue ofThe History of the Family: An International Quaterly 12 (2007) 4.

Ariadne Schmidt (ed.), Vrouwenarbeid in de vroegmoderne tijd in Nederland, themanummerTijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis

Ariadne Schmidt, Overleven na de dood. Weduwen in Leiden in de Gouden Eeuw (Amsterdam 2001).

Publications