Innovation of Women’s Labor

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Recommended: Women's impact on society in the civil war

Society defined woman's role in the labor force, which only started to change with the hard work by women themselves. Men did not accept the equality of women until they proved themselves in the labor force. During the times of the Civil War, depending on race, were working in different types of environments and circumstances. Some were getting paid for their work, some where not getting paid but were free, or some were people property and had no choice on the matter. With each of these different types of labor came with a social understanding of the worth of you and your work. Unlike men, women were always below no matter the skill level of work. The role of women’s labor has diversified throughout the mid 1800’s due to the social impact of the Civil War that legitimized the concerns of women’s labor worth in America.
Before the Civil War in the 1840’s, women worked in factories with long work hours and unfair conditions. Specifically, the Lowell Mill girls were treated so poorly because of their gender and this was the first instance that women were introduced in the workforce, under these new circumstances. Although technically this is not considered slave labor, it is compared because of the treatment of the workers. These young women were on such a strict work schedule, that they were enslaved by the corporations. In comparison, young slave children even had more free time then these young women because there day was planned to the minute. Before these women went on strike, “Hitherto the corporations had paid twenty—five cents a week towards the board of each operative, and now it was their purpose to have the girls pay the sum; and this, in addition to the cut in the wages, would make a difference of at least one dollar a w...

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Robinson, Harriet. "The Lowell Mill Girls Go on Strike, 1836." The Lowell Mill Girls Go on
Strike, 1836. History Matters, n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.

Roediger, David R. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working
Class. London: Verso, 1999. Print.

Truth, Sojourner. ""AIN'T I A WOMAN?"" "AIN'T I A WOMAN?" BY SOJOURNER
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