Living in the nineteenth and early twentieth century: Women and Work



Before 1914 44% of the autobiography writers in Emma Griffin’s book “Breadwinner” indicated that their mothers had worked whilst they (the writers) were children.  In urban areas mothers who were married to a male who provided well for his family were less likely to work.   The pattern of women withdrawing from the workplace at the point of marriage continued even in the mill districts where other women could get good wages.   There was an absence of child care in factory districts.  Fathers never got involved even when the mothers worked outside the home. In some cases such as shops women would work alongside their husbands in a shared business.  They would work from within the home undertaking tasks like needlework, cookery and laundry.  The legal requirements to send children to school were disregarded.
Working in the home or outside of it, ran alongside the need for household domestic work.  The latter was not replaced when women began paid employment.  As a result sometimes the combination of business and domestic work would be too much for women to cope with readily.
What was the purpose and use of any monies that women earned?  In some cases it was the desire to obtain extras for the children like holidays and could be strategy to improve the family’s social position:  “a step up on the social ladder”. Disruption of the male wage could come illness or unemployment (whether temporary or longer term).  Desertion of wives was more likely to result in women needing paid employment.  Needlework, taking in lodgers or laundry are frequent methods women described to increase the household income.  For those who were well-off there was the possibility of paying someone else to do domestic chores whilst they sought more lucrative employment.  The ways women used to supplement the household income could vary from area to area of the country, for example lace making was common in Nottingham.
The quality of a child’s life when the mother was working in paid employment varied according to the nature of the work.  Some women were able to take their children to the workplace whilst the children were still of pre-school age, but work outside the home for women frequently brought long periods of separation for mothers and children, if children had to remain at home.
Female work was prevalent in both urban and rural areas, even though rural husbands were more likely to provide a substantial proportion of the family’s income.  Women were more likely to be widowed in urban areas than in rural ones due to industrial accidents and illnesses and so needed the work to make their households financially viable.  In a rural setting work was predicated upon the patterns of the agricultural year and was often for the estate owner.  The pay would be less than was usual in urban areas.  The women described in the study undertook a wide variety of work, the examples mentioned earlier and also glove making, hosiery, net making and ribbon weaving.  Women were usually paid less than men.  This is often the case in our country today, but what are the changes you have noticed in the work activity of women since the time described in this blog post?

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