The community of the American Colonies in the 16th to 17th century shared ideas and ways of life with one another. “The colonist came from many countries—England, France, Holland, Germany, and Spain. They brought with them their different customs and skills” (Corwin 7). Together they learned to formulate and develop items. Home crafts are gender specific; typically women became the ones who wove, sewed, embroidered, and quilted; while the men cleared land, farmed, cut wood, butchered and hunted animals. In colonial America, home crafts became not just decoration or a hobby, but a thrifty use of leftover resources, a way of life, rebellion, and a huge role in women’s history.
Colonial women did not have many materials; they either made what they needed or bought it from Europe. Due to lack of supplies and money, the colonists never wasted materials that could be used again. The colonist saved grease and wood ashes; grease became used for lighting and was also the basis of soap, ashes became used as the soap ingredient called lye (Tunis 43). Salt was limited in the colonies, therefore not much salt became wasted on hardening soap; as a result they made it soft. Due to the hazardous fire of melting iron, common colonial citizens did not have much iron in their homes. As a substitute for iron; door hinges, latches, barrels, and utensils were all made out of wood.
Fabric that came from Europe costed as much as the equivalent to the garment itself. It became less expensive to make your own fabric than to buy it. “Producing one’s own clothes . . . meant weavin...
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...ing of home crafts, as the 17th and 18th century progressed, women became more than just a homemaker; they could own property, vote, and get a job.
Works Cited
Corwin, Judith. Colonial American Crafts: The Village. NY: Franklin Watts, 1989.
Earle, Alice. Child Life in Colonial Days. NY: Berkshire House Publishers, 1993.
Pepek, Gregory. "Women's Role Before and During the Colonial Period." Web Connections. 6 Oct 2008 .
Roberts, Cokie. Founding Mothers. USA: Harper Collins Publishers , 2004.
"Stamp Acts of 1765." Stamp Act. 2007. 6 Oct 2008
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Tunis, Edwin. Colonial Living. Canada: Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, 1957.
“The Weaving Room.” Online image. Daughters of Liberty. 6 Oct 2008.
To conclude, the capability to create customized clothing is becoming undemanding as technology evolves. Ready made apparel were only available in predetermined size before the American Civil War, this exemplifies how the sizes were arbitrary and were not the same on a broad scale. The statement “The wealthy’s clothes were made by tailors” is a prime example of how tailored outfits are costly. Today, designers have computer-aided design to their disposal this improved the creation of cloths in many ways making it effortless to design the clothing and to also produce them. With the creation of new technology making cloths, fabrics will become
Industrialization had a major impact on the lives of every American, including women. Before the era of industrialization, around the 1790's, a typical home scene depicted women carding and spinning while the man in the family weaves (Doc F). One statistic shows that men dominated women in the factory work, while women took over teaching and domestic services (Doc G). This information all relates to the changes in women because they were being discriminated against and given children's work while the men worked in factories all day. Women wanted to be given an equal chance, just as the men had been given.
In the early 19th century, America was experiencing an increase in economic, political, and social changes. One of the mass changes happened during the Market Revolution. What this revolution did for Americans that lived in a more rural environment was basically make things and traded them themselves. They would raise crops and animals to be traded or sold for food, clothing, etc. Factories in the North flourished and the US became more industrialized as people trade money for necessities or wants. The Market Revolution gave women the role of importance in their family life. Women became the new leading member of their family because they were the ones who kept the family together and raised the children and prepare them for adulthood in America. Although the Industrial Revolution brought positive changes to America it also shifted the lifestyles of people and their family.
Thesis: Boydston argues that women in Antebellum America, along with the society surrounding them, believed that there was little to no economic value to the work they did in the home (xii). Boydston in her text seeks understand the "the intimate relationship between the gender and labor systems that characterized industrializing America (xii).
As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...
The strengths of the book come from its’ accessibility. The book is easy to follow and provides readers with a great deal of information about the production of mass-manufactured clothing. As well as brings awareness to its’ many issues which we inadvertently take part in when we purchase such products. The book is well written and thoroughly researched but does have its’ share of weaknesses.
Through the drastic changes in the fashion industry, to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote, women’s status in society increased as they became an important role in society. The change in the fashion industry spread not only in the United States in the 1920’s but also throughout the world.
Women in this era had just begun to secure some freedom from their typical cultural expectations. They were expected to take care of the children, cook, clean, sew and be presentable to society. As jobs were made available to women, only a low percentage of these women started to work outside of the home. This means that many women had chosen to stay inside the home to remain in the role of “house keeper”. Even though the woman attained some freedom they were still considered inferior to men. Men still had the most authority in the household and
“The Pastoralization of Housework” by Jeanne Boydston is a publication that demonstrates women’s roles during the antebellum period. Women during this period began to embrace housework and believed their responsibilities were to maintain the home, and produce contented and healthy families. As things progressed, housework no longer held monetary value, and as a result, womanhood slowly shifted from worker to nurturer. The roles that women once held in the household were slowly diminishing as the economy became more industrialized. Despite the discomfort of men, when women realized they could find decent employment, still maintain their household and have extra income, women began exploring their option.
The “Bonds of Womanhood,” emphasizes the historical transformations that occurred prior to the Victorian period, for they resulted in vast changes to the role of women in the United States. The transition from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy led to the mass production of goods, among them textiles; with the invention of power looms in 1814 young women were often hired outside of their households to make textiles, thus increasing their independence. However, along with industrialization came many societal changes that affected women. Since working conditions in factories were atrocious, home became a means of escape that pressured wives to create a pleasant home environment for their husbands. This ideology contributed to the margina...
You are called to build a house. It's a big house, and you'll need all your tools, but you will be paid fairly. You are the colonial woodworker. The colonial woodworker was very important in the colonies. Woodworking provided jobs, houses, and skilled tradesmen ready to fix a broken structure. Anything made of wood was most likely built by a woodworker. The woodworker used various tools to make different cuts and shapes in wood. Woodworkers used many different types of wood for different pieces of furniture. Woodworking in Colonial America provided houses and jobs for colonists.
A huge part of the economical grow of the United States was the wealth being produced by the factories in New England. Women up until the factories started booming were seen as the child-bearer and were not allowed to have any kind of career. They were valued for factories because of their ability to do intricate work requiring dexterity and nimble fingers. "The Industrial Revolution has on the whole proved beneficial to women. It has resulted in greater leisure for women in the home and has relieved them from the drudgery and monotony that characterized much of the hand labour previously performed in connection with industrial work under the domestic system. For the woman workers outside the home it has resulted in better conditions, a greater variety of openings and an improved status" (Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850, pg.4) The women could now make their own money and they didn’t have to live completely off their husbands. This allowed women to start thinking more freely and become a little bit more independent.
The northern colonies badly needed the services their isolation denied them. The people needed doctors and surgeons and carpenters and blacksmiths. And although they could survive without many of the manufactured goods available only at high prices, they dreamed of owning these things. They dreamed also of luxury items-perfume, spices, silk cloth.
Most of the jobs women had were “subordinate but not powerless” (Forgeng 42). Brown and McBride stated that child-care, since that relied on women fully, and family business such as domestic work were some jobs that women could do (90, 92). Young girls would have to know how to spin and sew so they could tend to local shops in which, they would weave and sew (Brown and McBride 93, “Daily Life”). Any jobs that women had depended on the lifestyle they lived in and where they lived (Brown and McBride 94). The jobs that the upper class women had were to make sure the children...
Women's roles in society greatly changed after the growth of industry. Women who once were mere housewives and caring mothers now became an active part of the working class. They no longer stayed at home during the day taking care of their husband and children seeing to it that they acted properly and had high moral values instead. Wealthy women were privileged few who were able to stay at home and devote themselves totally to their families.