The nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution in Europe marked a major turning point in European industry and production. Factories became the main source of production of goods, as a focus on agriculture decreased. Women began to work outside the home, performing the tasks they had done at home in the past now in factories, often under poor conditions for little pay. Women’s experiences in the factories of the Industrial Revolution served as a definite indication of a shift in European gender roles, through women’s transition from agriculture-related employment to working in factories, and the little pay they received, although men still expected women to care for the children and the home, as per the stereotypical gender standards of the time. …show more content…
This disappointed the physiocrats, a group of people that had believed in the necessity of an economy based on agriculture, as people moved to factories, with few people still working on farms. Women, in particular, began to populate factories, as they could perform the menial work needed in order to maintain productivity. However, a clear lack of labor laws existed at the time, and these women almost always worked under terrible conditions. German journalists, part of an ideally truthful profession, reported that factory machines produced an exorbitant amount of dust, which the women inhaled in substantial quantities, as they were not permitted to open the windows (Doc 2). Furthermore, although women worked long hours, they received little pay for their efforts, as described by a British women’s right activist intending to highlight injustice (Doc 3). Women’s roles in factory life exemplified the shift away from agriculture work, and the increase in the number of women working outside of the home for little pay, acts brought about by the advent of the Industrial …show more content…
A male factory employee familiar with his female coworkers noted that many women still had children at a young age, during their teenage years (Doc 4). Women also tended to have a large number of children, common when peasants worked on farms and needed as many bodies to help tend to the animals as they could get. However, since women now worked in an urban setting outside of the home, conflicts arose when they needed to care for young children. This led to small children being brought to work with their mothers, although this usually occurred with women working in fields, not factories, given the harmful environment of the factories (Doc 1). While women worked outside of the home and earned money for themselves and their families during the Industrial Revolution, they continued to have several children, and act as the prime caregiver, as they had prior to the
“Slacks and Calluses: Our Summer in a Bomber Factory” is a book that describes the summer of two teachers, Constance Bowman Reid and Clara Marie Allen, working in a bomber factory for the military of the United States. This book explains how women’s role in society began to change during the time of World War II. Throughout this book, the author, Constance Bowman Reid, describes the way they were treated due to being female, how the country felt about women going to work in factories during the summer of 1943, and why women decided to work in bomber factories for the US during World War II. Constance Reid describes how there were many things that defined women such as what clothes they wore and what they occupation they carried. During this era, women were known to be classy in ways like females usually wore skirts in public and had careers as nurses or teachers.
These young women,many being immigrants, worked six or seven days a week for wages of approximately $5, crammed into dark spaces with little ventilation . This factory like so many others was owned and run by men who were more interested in males working in the higher-paid jobs, while assuming women were less skilled and less willing to fight for equality. “The shops are unsanitary - that's the word that is generally used, but there ought to be a worse one used. Whenever we tear or damage any of the goods we sew on, or whenever it is found damaged after we are through with it, whether we have done it or not, we are charged for the piece and sometimes for a whole yard of the material. ”(7).
I read “Revolutionary Mothers” by Carol Perkins. Berkins tells the many different stories of women throughout the Revolutionary War and the struggles and strives each women faced and overcame. She introduces us to women from all different backgrounds and their own personal stories that have so greatly affected our history today. Throughout the book Berkins shows how large of a role women played during this time period, even though it is often overlooked. Without the courage and bravery from these women during this time period we would have not been able to secure our independence from Britain.
These women worked in deplorable working conditions, for a ludicrous number of hours each week, and earned meager compensation. Although to modern readers, the women’s working conditions alone seem horrific, at this time, these conditions were far from uncommon across factories in
During the Industrial Revolution, it was not only a time of change for the economy, but also for many towns and villages in England. What was once a respectably sized village in the late eighteenth century turned into the bustling city of Manchester during the nineteenth century. Although the revolution saw the country pushed forth into a new era of productivity, it spelled horror for the working class. Issues in Manchester were rampant, such as the deplorable living conditions, the working man being squashed beneath the iron heel of the businessmen, the decline of religion, and pollution of the once great country. This yielded several reactions from various sources, including that of scholars who smelled socialism on the rise, the creation
“Mill girls had been replaced in the mid-to late 1800s by Italian, Irish, and Portuguese immigrants who would work for lower wages” (“Harriet Hanson Robinson”). Although the textile mills thought they had found a better way to work without spending as much money on workers they were wrong. Most mill girls were already very experienced and good at their jobs, while immigrants needed to be taught all of their jobs and there was a strong language barrier which made everything more difficult. “One out of every three spinners, many under the age of twenty five, would die before completing ten years in the factory” (“Harriet Hanson Robinson”). With many of the mill girls not being able to survive in such harsh conditions and as they got fewer and fewer, it showed how important all of them were in the business.
During the Industrial Revolution, women did not have equal work rights to men. In the book Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson, Lyddie is a young girl that needs to find work to help her family. Lyddie’s father is still away on his odyssey, and the family farm is in debt. Therefore, her mother essentially sells Lyddie and her brother to work in places with incredibly rare and low pay. The mistress Lyddie is working for fires her, so she seizes the opportunity and travels to Lowell to work as a factory girl.
Normally a woman’s job would be to stay home and proceed in housework, taking care of the children, making meals, knitting clothes, laundry, etc. Women could barely take care of themselves during this time nevermind taking care of their children. They were so busy with working long shifts during the day and sometimes working thirteen days straight without a break. They then would go home to do housework, laundry, and meal cooking. When working in these factories, there were accidents, such as an explosion that happened and killed 73 woman and destroyed homes around the area.
First, women began to look for small jobs to support the family in any way they could. Next, the older children in the family began to leave home and look for jobs,“Without a job or meaningful work (or to escape parents stressed by their unemployment), many young men and women took to the road, sometime hoboing on freight trains but often on foot”(Campbell).
Beginning as early as the 1830s, women fought for fair wages, safe working conditions, reasonable hours, and regulation of child labor.⁷ Strikes lead by working women erupted in many cities where unsafe factory conditions were common, such as the New York Shirtwaist Strike of 1909. On November 24th, 20,000 female workers from the garment industry went on strike in New York, seeking “better wages, standardized work days, improved working conditions, and union representation. ”⁸ Women’s strikes often highlighted the unfortunate child labor practices that took place in many mills, such as in the Lawrence, Massachusetts Bread and Roses Strike in 1912. One child from Lawrence reported to a Chicago newspaper that he was in the fifth grade and that he “wish[es] [he] could go on [in school], but of course it it [his] duty to help papa and mamma as soon as [he] can. ”⁹
Moreover, the shortage of female employment opportunities, as well as restrictive cultural expectations, resulted in only a narrow range of careers to be available to women. For example, for the comparatively few middle class women who pursued a career outside of the home, they “...had been largely restricted to school-teaching, social-service work, nursing, stenography, and clerical work in business houses” (Allen, 80). Therefore, women’s identities during the very early 1900s were heavily influenced by the work they provided in the home, and the traditional norms of the times. Thus, while these women made efforts towards independence from the traditional norms, they were almost completely reliant on
The message being sent by the government and employers was that women could not expect the same kinds of opportunities that they had during the war. Any evidence of male unemployment, caused society to see women as depriving men of work by refusing to leave it and return home. Such criticism by the world, showed no understanding of the fact that women might not want to return back to domestic work. But although many employers were against women working in a prewar state, many manufacturers realized that because heavy wartime losses had left them with a labour shortage, they would have to employ women. Nevertheless, women were paid less and was deemed to require less skill than work done by men.
Woman Soldiers of The Civil War By accentuating the female’s roles and responsibilities in the Civil War, the women’s roles and responsibilities were completely different and often unequal to the men’s roles, yet the women in They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War influenced the lives of many females later on in life. In addition, some women in They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War fought for the same reasons as men for patriotism, adventure, to free the country of slavery.
Domestic labour – housewives Women have always been allocated as economically dependent on men. They have also been destined to domestic work, either at staying home, being a housewife or either by doing a job that has to do with domestic work. In addition, even employers have the same views of work for women and when it comes to employability, they tend to hire men for jobs that have nothing to do with domestic work. However, the real fact is that a woman who has a salary can manage her life in a better way than a woman who is dependent on a man.
Steven Ruggles stated that “A nuclear family is one which contains no relatives other than a husband, wife, and their children.”(1987). It is evident that the family pattern have change over centuries. Just before the Industrial Revolution and modernization the extended family was prominent in the 1650 in England. From the modernization theory, social thinkers have observed the family from the time when industrialization had arisen in the West then in other parts of the world…. The Industrial Revolution has change the structure and the environment of the family.