Alice Krzanich

Thesis title: Female domestic servants in early industrial Scotland: legal principles of the master-servant relationship as they applied to women in the period c 1790 – c 1850

Biography

Background

Alice Krzanich was a PhD student at Edinburgh Law School from 2018 to 2022. Her thesis focussed on the contract of domestic service in early nineteenth-century Scotland. Alice graduated in July 2022.

 

Undergraduate teaching

Alice tutored in the following undergraduate courses at Edinburgh Law School whilst completing her PhD:

  • Scottish Legal System
  • Contract and Unjustified Enrichment

 

Research summary

Alice's research examined Scots master-servant law as it applied to female domestic servants in the first half of the nineteenth century, when Scotland was becoming an industrial nation. This research was situated within the field of women’s legal history and involved the study of law and gender, historical contract law, and the legal relationship of master and servant.

Alice was particularly interested in the contractual aspects of master-servant law as it applied to women, including issues surrounding the hiring and dismissal of female servants, as well as the obligations female servants owed to masters/mistresses and vice versa. Alice considered to what extent nineteenth-century notions of gender and class influenced the application and formation of these contractual principles, and what this revealed about the law's attitude to women who worked in the household.

Papers delivered

Alice presented her PhD research at a number of online academic events, including:

  • Women, Money and Markets (1600-1900): Fourth Annual Conference on “Female Economies”, University of Zurich, June 2021.
  • Gender and Justice in Scotland: Historical and Legal Perspectives Symposium, University of Glasgow, May 2021.
  • 14th Annual McGill Law Graduate Conference, McGill University, May 2021.
  • Edinburgh Private Law Discussion Group, University of Edinburgh, February 2021.
  • Legal and Social History Workshop, University of Cambridge, February 2021.
  • 39th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society, University of Auckland, December 2020.
  • Graduate Women Scotland Research Presentation Day, October 2020.
  • Edinburgh Law School staff seminar series, October 2020.
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