There are few memorials to colonial businesswomen, but if you know where to look, you can find many traces of their presence as you wander the streets of Sydney. This book brings the stories of these entrepreneurial women to life, with fascinating details of their successes and failures, their determination and wilfulness, their achievements, their tragedies and the occasional juicy scandal.

Until now we have imagined colonial women indoors – as wives, mothers, domestic servants or prostitutes. This book sets them firmly out in the open.