Did the lives and status of women change as a result of the industrial revolution in the period 1750-1850?

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        Did the lives and status of women change as a result of the _                  industrial revolution in the period 1750-1850?

                        

        The industrial revolution, with the development of new technologies, a centralisation of manufacture and an increasing focus on capitalist production, was bound to have far-reaching implications throughout the country. Therefore, this is not so much a question of whether or not change occurred but how much change occurred and whether it had a positive or negative effect on women, and also how much remained the same. Regional differences, as well as variations from industry to industry, and from year to year, must also be taken into account.

        In order to answer this question fully, the general way of life pre-industrialisation must be explored. During the eighteenth century, families often worked together as an economic unit, producing goods for subsistence and possibly also to sell or exchange. There was an idea dating back to the Tudor and Stuart period that everybody should work together for “one common interest”¹, therefore women and men worked together, both contributing to the family economy. Although men were looked upon as the head of the family, and women were given possibly lesser tasks and responsibilities, at least they gave a “different yet equally indispensable contribution”², and were reliant upon the other for the interests of the family. Although dairy work, crops and livestock made up their livelihood, not all work was agricultural, in fact in 1750, 21 per cent of the population lived in towns. Those who lived in rural areas were not always involved in agriculture, but were employed in a variety of occupations such as mining, worsted spinning, silk and the production of chains.

        Hardship and neediness was widespread in eighteenth century England and Scotland. Many women were obviously included within the bracket of people of limited means - 80 per cent of poor people in Liverpool in 1755 were female. It was believed that everybody should seek work; otherwise they were of no use to society and became, according to the writer Henry Fielding, “useless Members”³.

        An example of pre-industrial production was spinning. Spinning wool was a typically female task, and an extremely important component of the poor community’s economic life. The great advantage to spinning was the convenience as it could be stopped and started whenever was required; greatly useful to the housewife as she inevitably had a host of other responsibilities, such as caring for young children, running the household, tending animals, and performing agricultural tasks. This meant that any spare time between her daily tasks was put to profitable use. Some spinsters (or their husbands) even bought their own raw materials and sold the finished products themselves so as to achieve the best price. Others worked for a merchant or a putter-out (people who had regular access to large quantities of raw material).

¹ - Valenze, D. The First Industrial Woman. p.14

² - Purvis, J. (ed) - Women’s History. p.23

³ -  Valenze, D. The First Industrial Woman. p.14

        

        Wages of women were perpetually lower than men’s throughout the eighteenth century. For example, in agriculture, in 1752, a woman earned 6d per day for reaping, whilst a man would receive 10d. Similarly, for haymaking in 1770, a woman earned 6d per day whilst her male counterpart would earn 1s. 2d. This appears to correspond with the idea of patriarchy, and that women were inferior in status. We shall see whether this changed when exploring the impact of industrialisation.

        Studies of the effect of the industrial revolution on women are generally divided into two schools of thought; optimistic and pessimistic. Optimists believe that the industrial revolution was beneficial for women, in that it created considerably more jobs and opportunities to be emancipated from the domestic sphere. Pessimists are of the view that the pre-industrial world promoted creative, harmonic, more sexually equal labour, and that industrialisation destroyed this, forcing more women into work in order to save their families from the increasing poverty. Alternatively, they believe that women lost jobs due to industrialisation, such as spinsters who worked from home, and that the new industries that grew during the industrial revolution, like shipbuilding, were closed to women, thus deteriorating their status as a whole.

        Initially, the negative changes shall be explored, corresponding with the pessimists, that the industrial revolution brought about in women’s lives. The shift away from subsistence, home production of goods to more capitalistic, centralised manufacture inevitably cut the income of those who did not seek work in a workshop or factory. Contrary to the belief that had existed pre-industrialisation, women’s work was considered unnecessary, and they were paid a ‘customary’ wage, which approximated to one-third to one-half of a man’s wage. For example, in 1833, in Aberdeen, a woman working in a paper factory could earn approximately 5.30s per week, whilst a man would earn 13.14s per week. Employers justified this discrimination by claiming that men needed a ‘family wage’ to support their dependents, whilst women were dependent themselves on their husbands or fathers, and did not need the same wages. However, employers neglected to take into account the fact that many women workers were single and had no male relatives to take care of them, therefore thrusting them into a life of near poverty and destitution.

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        Additionally, another justification was put forth by male workers and employers; women were performing less skilled jobs than men were and so deserved less pay - this was because they had been placed there by the employers themselves, due to fears that they would threaten the jobs of the male workers. For example, in the nineteenth century, home knitters in Leicester entered hosiery factories to perform unskilled jobs (and gain the lowly status and wages that came with them), not jobs that would have drawn on their experience in the production of garments. This sexual division of labour was evident ...

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