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Women roles during industrial revolution
Women employment right during the industrial revolution
Women roles during industrial revolution
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Lowell Mills Girls According to the article “Power Looms. One Girl Works Four.” , women held nearly two-thirds of all textile jobs in Lowell, Massachusetts. Francis Cabot Lowell hired women, mostly from farm families, to work in the city for his textile factories.
The dangers of working in factories gave a great perspective of what it was like to do a man’s job, but women weren’t afraid. They desired equality and
Women worked in textile factories since it gave them a higher-paying job opportunity. In Document C, Sally Rice writes that “It (working in the factory) will be better than doing housework.” Housework didn’t pay as much as an average family needed, so the women had to change jobs for a better opportunity. Document A, explains that the textile mills had a fee on “Room and board (meals) in company boarding houses” which “cost about $1.25 per week”, the average daily wage for women was 60 cents leaving the women with $2.71 each week. Housework didn’t pay as much, and the women thought it was best for them to have more money; ergo, they switched to
Factory Girl said, “one of the most lucrative female employments should be rejected because it is toilsome, or because some people are prejudiced against it. Yankee girls have too much independence for that” (Doc B) because Orestes Brownson said that factory work is immoral for women. Another worker, Lucy Ann, said “if I go to Oberlin I take comfort & forget all those long wearisome mill days & perhaps I prepare myself for usefulness in this life. ” (Doc F) because her parents and neighbors keep taking her hard earned money instead of it being hers.
In the middle of the 20th century, women were at a cultural crossroads in American society. Work or not to work? Ration or consumption - a ration? These very concerns were a hot debate across the nation at the time, as women of this period were expected of nothing more than keeping the house and raising children, but the goliath that was World War II opened up opportunities in manufacturing and other non-traditional jobs for women because of the fact that there was no men to fill these vacancies. Many women upon hearing Congresswoman’s Clare Boothe Luce’s speech in September of 1942 directed to the women’s banking committee were motivated to fill these spots that men normally would’ve worked at.
The Lowell Mills had a big impact on the U.S. because women could work for the first time ever. The Lowell Mills hired young single women between the ages of 15 to 35 to work in the mills. The girls would work about 20 hours a week in the mills. One day the Lowell Mill Girls went on strike because they found out that the wages would be cut down the mills were shut down and the girls were no longer working in the Lowell Mills. Single women were chosen because they could be paid less than men.
Even though they were already being paid half what men would’ve been paid it became an excuse to become free of the controlling families they were a part of and, challenge the stigma of womanly dependence. Even with thirteen-hour work days and six-day work weeks they found time to do an abundance of time to create groups and interests for themselves. Their self-sufficiency was riding on this system to work, along with their dignity, and for a while, it all worked
In the 1820s was a period known as the Industrial Revolution. Alexander Hamilton wrote the Report on Manufacturers in 1791 that gave the idea that women and children could be used as cheap labor. Thus, in the 1820s factories in New England started to hire women and children for only three dollars per week (Women in the Early Industrial Revolution ). Three dollars a week does not seem like much however, many of these women worked on farms were they did not earn that much money. Money was not the only thing that persuaded these women to begin working in factories.
It was these types of jobs that women specialized in that further promoted this idea of a working woman. Ninety percent or more of the nurses, midwives, telephone operators, secretaries, domestic service workers, and boarding housekeepers in 1940’s were women. These new professions and ideas about how women should be viewed helped to advance women’s rights movements, leading to significant gains in the decades following the passing amendment’s This reflects how the Nineteenth Amendment empowered women to challenge gender-based discrimination in all aspects of their
On the other hand, some claim that the mills oppressed these women workers by cutting their wages and increasing their work. Reporters of the newspaper The Harbringer visited the Lowell mills in 1836 to observe the practices there (Voices 136). They commented on the cumbersome work load of the operatives: “The girls attended upon an average three looms; many attended four, but this requires a very active person, and the most unremitting care….Attention to two is as much as should be demanded of an operative” (Voices 136). The mill owners reduced the girls’ wages and increased their loom and speed quota to maintain profits during a decrease in cloth prices (“Bagley” 94).
The Women of the Industrial Revolution Lowell, Massachusetts is known to be the kickstarter of the Industrial Revolution (“Lowell Massachusetts History |Lowell History”). The Lowell Girls, women who worked in the factories in Lowell, made up almost all of the textile workers of the 1840s (Commons). The friends and families of the Lowell Girls were told that they were treated properly and were given respect (“Lowell Mill Girls and the Factory System, 1840”). In reality, the deaths and accidents inside the factories were as common as ants at a picnic (Commons). The working quarters were densely packed, and diseases spread quickly (Commons).
With just about 13 million Americans unemployed, many struggled to find a place to live and to maintain a healthy family. As men lost their jobs, many went off to search for somewhere to work, or went off to war leaving many mothers single and abandoned. The women who were abandoned were left to support their children and families alone, which was a dramatic change in lifestyle. However, it was not an easy task for women to find a job as discrimination and sexism was a painful reality. With the fall of the economy and the start of an unfamiliar lifestyle, women definitely had a major contribution in the workforce and economy, but just how impactful was it?
The war had provided a variety of employment opportunities for women and the most common job for women was at home, working in factories and filling in positions for their husbands, fathers, and brothers in their absence. Although the highest demand for workers were in previously male-dominated
In the article it says that women entered jobs like engineering, other professions, and manufacturing jobs that many people believed that those jobs were too dangerous for women and women were too weak. In their jobs, women made airplanes, warships, munitions, and tanks working in technical and scientific fields. Also, after the war, women were still employed as secretaries, waitresses, or in other clerical jobs. This was often called the “pink collar” force. This article shows how sometimes women are given clerical jobs that show people underestimate the abilities of women.
Women had no rights when it came to working and since they didn’t have rights not many women got employed. Also, the jobs that were available were not for women and if mill owners decided to hire women they would go and hire immigrant women instead. The reason they would hire these immigrant women was because they accepted any amount of money so the owners of the mill would make more profit than they would if they paid American women to work for them. However, if a women did get a job they would normally get paid less than men did since they weren’t seen as equal to them and the conditions were usually not the best. Since there were no laws against discrimination in the 1800’s there was nothing an American women could do to demand the equality they deserved in the workforce.
