The Rise of Professional Women in France
Gender and Public Administration since 1830

"[Clark] has not only produced a remarkably thorough and richly detailed analysis of the administrative services and the professional women who staffed them, but in addition the chronological sweep of the book provides a rare view of the long-term evolution of women's administrative work. Effectively using personnel dossiers and interviews with women civil servants, Clark balances statistics and administrative detail with invaluable individual career histories. In short, this is an excellent case study of the relationship between women, the state, and public life that shows how the expansion of state administration created gender segregation in public sector employment over nearly 150 years." Journal of Modern History

"The author is to be congratulated on her persistence and on the valuable fruit that it has produced, which is as informative on the workings of the civil service as it is on women's political ambitions." Historian

"Staggeringly impressive...It should greatly interest readers not only as a contribution to gender studies, administrative history, and the (not always obvious) linkage between mentalites and social history but as a balanced, judicious, and well-researched contribution to general French history." American Historical Review