I got really interested in the herring industry in Scotland in the 1800s for a novel I was writing a while back.
There were groups of young women that would travel up and down the coast working to gut all the herring and pack them in barrels to be cured/sold. I think it's fascinating partially because most people wouldn't consider "gutting fish" to be traditional women's work, but there was a whole culture built around it. All of the herring-gutters at the time were women.
I tend to get really interest in really specific moments in history like that.