The term “Industrial Revolution” brings to my mind images of women and children working in unpleasant and dangerous environments, but it should be learned that women and children worked in agricultural economies too. They were always expected to work. The only thing that changed with the Industrial Revolution was the type of work they did and the situations under which they worked.
The west’s Industrial Revolution transitioned the roles of women in many ways. Industrialization abuse into women’s traditional work, but aimed to expand educational opportunities. Some work roles led to protests creating riots as attention shifted to work-based strikes, including feminism, developed by 1914. Although for women it was very dangerous, working conditions
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It motivated young women to leave their families in the country to work in the growing urban centers. The wages allowed young women to save something for their future marriages, and finally some daughters used their earnings to assist their families. Maxine Berg quotes an observer in Scotland as saying “one rarely met with an old woman in the north of Scotland, that is not otherwise employed, but who has got a distaff stuck in her girdle and a spindle at her hand.” (Berg, 142) A different witness in the Scottish Highlands commented: Here as in all semi-barbarous countries, is the woman seen to be regarded rather the drudge than the companion to the man. The husband turns up the land and sows it – the wife conveys the manure to it in a creel, tends the corn, reaps it, hoes the potatoes, digs them up, carries the whole home on her back, when bearing the creel, she is also engaged with spinning with the distaff … (Berg 143) In towns women might work along side their husbands as a housewife. Managing the house and the handle of other accounts, in addition to giving birth, raising children and running their lives. The Industrial Revolution was not the beginning of work for women. Women had long been doing hard work for long hours. The Industrial Revolution did bring new
Women during the age of Industrialization in Britain conceded and proclaimed a more noticeable system of equality. As women protested for more rights, occupational opportunities, and increased wages, they drastically alternated their lives. As more women were working in factories, the differences in the lives of men and women decreased. Urbanization played a considerable role in the development of Industrial Britain. In certain conditions women were still separate as they had distinctive jobs, pay, and were still expected to do the tasks at home, all the while in atrocious conditions that were not always sympathized, but more overlooked.
From this different jobs where allocated on the persons behaviour and characteristics. The industrial revolution automatically changed all rights for women to work as the men where known as the “bread winners” and all females where known as “home makers’’. (2) Woman in the work force was fuelled by the economic importance of all woman, married or single due to the fact they where cheaper. All females had to find work with a steady wage in factories to support their family. (3) During the ninetieth century there was very minimal safety in the work force.
“I shall not stay here… Up before day, at the clang of a bell and out the mill by the bell - just as though we were so many living machines” (Hopkinson 37). Many girls, between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, worked at textile mills during the Industrial Revolution for eleven to twelve hours a day, with little time to catch their breath and fresh air. The Industrial Revolution started in Europe in the eighteenth century and spread to America during the nineteenth century. Eli Whitney’s invention of interchangeable parts and mass production helped lead the American Industrial Revolution, which started after the War of 1812 and peaked during the 1870’s. During this time period, many factories, mills, and factory cities were constructed, one of which was Lowell, Massachusetts, and employed women because their salaries were lower and therefore cost less. The conditions of the mills and boarding houses that the girls lived in were unpleasant and crowded, and they could easily become ill. Eventually, after the height of the Industrial Revolution, women fought for their rights and better conditions in their workplaces. The Industrial Revolution changed women’s roles in society, as it made jobs that were filled by girls, put them in challenging settings, and united them to work for change in the workforce.
As industrialization spread in Western Europe, the production of products and goods moved from the household to factories which drastically changed family life. Married women were unable to work unless they left their children and home in someone else’s care. Moreover, middle-class women generally did not leave their homes in order to work. In contrast, the women of Eastern Asia rapidly joined the work force after the introduction of industrialization and made up a gigantic portion of the labor force. This difference is probably due to the fact that the rural women of Eastern Asia were always laborers, and they make up the majority of the female population. Additionally, European women generally preferred domestic labor to laborious tasks. Rural women were offered independence by leaving their homes in order to perform domestic work; they generally sent their earnings to their families or saved it for themselves. Moreover, the European women that participated in the work force were forced to travel long distances and were separated from their families from long hours. Additionally, their wages were significantly lower than that of their male counterparts. Furthermore, women worked under poor conditions and were constantly susceptible to disease. Similarly, the poor women of Eastern Asia sought employment in the cotton and silk industry.
Industrialization took place earlier in the western countries than the other parts of the world. Through the introduction of machines that made work easier in the industries, employment was no longer a man’s thing and women found an opportunity to work (Carlin 318). The revolution created a shortage in labor and textile factories absorbed young single ladies from the rural areas. The
The Second Industrial Revolution had a major impact on women's lives. After being controlled fro so long women were experiencing what it was like to live an independent life. In the late nineteenth century women were participating in a variety of experiences, such as social disabilities confronted by all women, new employment patterns, and working class poverty and prostitution. These experiences will show how women were perceived in the Second Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution was a period of industrial and urban growth in America during the 18th and 19th centuries. This period marked a transition from an agrarian based system, to one focused exclusively on economics and commodity production. Industrialization introduced innovative technology and the formation of factories would ultimately change how goods and materials were made. During the American Revolution, women were responsible for in-home production that aided the war effort, using their production as a means to contribute publically. As America transitioned from this period into the period of the Industrial Revolution, these widened roles became more restrictive, women were no longer producers, they were consumers, and it was not a common practice for women to work outside of the home. This generated an opportunity for women to challenge newly forming gender ideals in which women’s societal expectations were constructed according to the masculine majority and falling outside of these expectations was deemed inappropriate. The Industrial Revolution prompted an enlightenment period in which gender ideals suggested that men were intellectually superior to women and this perceived superiority helped to influence distinct public and private spheres of influence for both men and women and presented the idea that women had a specific set of virtues to uphold according to the “cult of true womanhood.”
Women who worked in mills in Massachusetts during the Industrial Revolution (1830s) lived in an era of exploitation. These women were being used by factory owners. Factory owners had control over what women in the mills did and also had control over what they did in the boarding houses which was a way of exploitation. Women had strict rules in the boarding houses (Eynon 8). If they did not follow these rules then one would get kicked out of the house and would lose their job.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the role of women began to change. Slowly the role of women went from strict domestic work, to having their own say in their own reform groups. After the American Revolution, women began to have a say in what went on during their everyday lives or the lives of their children and husbands. A woman having her own say was something new for men to have to deal with, but they were willing to listen. Women do not get the right to vote nationally until the 1920s, but the start of their suffrage and political movement begins in the nineteenth century with the changing times of the Industrial Revolution and life after the American Revolution.
Firstly, the Industrial Revolution affected women in the working and poor classes by allowing them to work in factories and mills. Before this time, women in the working class were primarily working unpaid jobs such as cooking and cleaning around the house for the family, but the industrial revolution gave women the chance to be paid and work outside of their homes (Frader, “Effects of the Industrial Revolution”, BCP). Most women obtained jobs in the textile industry. According to Dr. Christopher Wells, a professor of U.S cultural history at Macalester University, explained that ,“The town of Lowell, MA, for example, was incorporated in 1826 and soon hosted over 30 different mills.” (Wells, “Industrializing Women”, Teaching History). In the Lowell Mills, women expected to work at least thirteen hour days of constant and tiring labor in which women accounted for three-fourths of the workers in the mill. (Wells, “Industrializing Women”, Teaching History). Women factory workers typically made around $3.00 to $3.50 per week which was much greater than most women could earn in their hometowns (Dublin, “Women and
The Industrial revolution. Arguably one of the greatest moments in English and global history. A time that had industrialized the whole of England, revolutionized science, government, literature, machinery, and even art. However, despite these evolutionary and forever game changing events, the Industrial Revolution had a dark side. In order for the industrialization of England to be stable and maintained, human hands were required in factories, mills, and mines. From dawn till dusk, men, women, and children engaged in dangerous and hard labour and were paid far below what they deserved for doing so. They were mistreated in a various ways that would cause any civilized human in todays modern age to cringe in astonishment and disbelief. In fact, many historians and philosophers have come
The industrial revolution swept through Europe and North America during the 19th century, affecting the class structure, economy, government, and even the religious practices of everyone who lived in or did commerce with these new "industrialized nations." It made the modern age possible, but it was not without its "growing pains." The position of women before the industrial revolution was often equivalent to chattel, and then as now, they were expected to take naturally to housework and child rearing. The history of working women in the Industrial Revolution is rife with accounts of abuse and tragedy, but overall it improved their position in capitalist societies. Below, I will explain the
Woman along with the children were affected while working during the industrial revolution. During 1834 and 1836 Harriet Martineau, a British feminist and abolitionist, visited America and enthusiastically embraced the social implications of the Industrial Revolution, (DTA, 223). Martineau compared the lifestyle of women to slaves and said the United States contradicted the principles of the Declaration of Independence. She did believe though with some progress that it could become New England’s new industrial order. One of the Mill factories Martineau visited, Waltham Mill, was a prime example of the scheduled lifestyle of women mill workers. Women Mill workers of all ages worked at Waltham Mill, which I compared to a boarding school because of their strict schedules. The ladies had a time to wake up, to be at work, to eat, and to go to school. A lot of women did not mind the harsh conditions they lived and worked in because they fought for their equality of rights for a long time now.
The industrial revolution in both the United States and England relied heavily on roles in the household and society. Men, woman, children and minorities all had a set place in society before the industrial revolution. During the revolution and sense of enlightenment changed the roles of these individuals. In the middle of the 1800’s there was change in the role of men, the workplace was no longer a farm or working in the town, rather men were expected to be entrepreneurs. Men, unlike woman, were seen as aggressive and built to work in a savage work place were they could bring home the bread for the family. In England several factory jobs were quite laborious, as well as in the US, however many emigrants that came to the United States had a different sense of what labor as a man meant. Labor was no longer
A boost in economic benefits wasn’t the only effect of the industrial revolution, it also brought about social changes. Before factories and machines, women weren’t viewed as being able to do the same job as men. They were seen as housewives and this assumption remained the same until the rise of factories and industry. For the first time, women were able to work in the same factories as men. However, women were paid less than men because society at that time still viewed them as inferior to men. Although you could still see this policy in some societies today, women are now able to work in the same positions as men because of the circumstances that were brought by the rise of industrialization and factories. Also, thanks to mass production in factories, the rule of supply and demand allowed people to afford new things as stated before. Such an effect is shown in Document 7 in an excerpt from The Working Man’s Companion published in 1831. It states how people are surrounded with an infinite number of comforts and