Industrial Revolution Women

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the private and public sphere were one sphere and meant the same thing, where home and work were equal (lecture). Family was the economic unit working and functioning together to sustain the home with agriculture being the means of labor and production where “one owned their labor (lecture).” And labor increased that also meant an increased need for workers or laborers which at that time meant children in the home. So with increased work and demand for more workers, the answer was to reproduce more children, or workers. The lives of children during this time differ drastically to the lives of children today “Unlike today, where children are seen as mouths to feed (lecture).” Children were seen as not children

So, women’s independence seems to be acceptable maybe even praised before marriage but after marriage this independence is expected to be traded for dependence. Despite being dependent on the wages of a spouse or male family member, women did work despite the middle class ideal and even with the era’s “concept of true womanhood,” which limited the opportunities for women to achieve economic and social independence, especially for foreign born women and black women, along with native born white women who occupied both spheres doing paid and unpaid labor in order to support their families along with the wage of their spouse, thus depending on both the women’s and men’s income (Stern and Axinn, p.103). Situations where women with young children who became widowed were offered relief upon losing a good portion if not most of their income. These women would now have to adjust to one income, which is significantly lower, within the public sphere but also do most if not all of the work in the private sphere. “These women were offered poverty relief with the widow’s/mother’s pension

These outcomes were in terms of housing, children in the labor force, women’s work and the conditions of work for women and children, as well as work done with the issue of sanitation (lecture). “An important point mentioned with regards to the Charity Organization Movement was that the movement illustrates how a specific class of women, which was protestant, white, and upper class was now engaging in the public sphere, in terms of politics (lecture).” An example is the Temperance movement which up until that point had been a man’s domain and when women started getting involved, this represented middle class reactions to the disorder of another class, where the middle class had not been separated from other classes and the moral corruption of the working class was on public display (p102). Alcohol and the use of alcohol was gendered as well as the realities of marriage at this time, where alcohol was consumed primarily by men and in areas dominated by men such as bars and brothels and in a world where morally upright, respectable women were excluded (p.102). Besides the Temperance Movement, women also participated in the abolition movement and during this time is when women’s rights took a pause to focus more on war relief and this was also a time where technological innovations changed women’s work in the private sphere. Innovations such as indoor plumbing and electric lighting as well as the rise of