Poor Women’s Migration to the City

Abstract

Early modern Amsterdam attracted large numbers of female immigrants. Their presence can be inferred from marriage registers and the city’s substantial surplus of women. Knowledge of their exact numbers, of why they migrated, and of how they lived is, however, hard to come by. This article approaches their motives and perspectives through two case studies. The first concerns the migrating poor from Husum, a small town in northern Germany. The second probes the migration patterns and stories of the thousands of immigrant women convicted of prostitution as told before the Amsterdam courts. Female migration had many facets. Women migrated in all stages of their lives and for many reasons. Probably, most came looking for work, even if it was informal or illegal. Others were attracted by the relatively generous poor relief and free medical care Amsterdam offered, especially to pregnant women, a fact that seems to have been widely known.