Author published Labouring lives: women, work and the demographic transition in the Netherlands 1880-1960 (Peter Lang, 2014). in this article author looks at the women who have led this 'quiet revolution', like Catharina Maria Weijters, one of the 2000 Dutch women born between 1881-1885 and between 1911-1915, author studied. Her two grandmothers set her out on a course that ended in the publication of her book.