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Women's rights in the 18th century
Women's rights in the 18th century
Women's rights in the 18th century
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In the early 1800s the textile mills of Lowell Massachusetts were a celebrated economic and cultural attraction. Visitors always made sure to pass this place when they visited. Surprisingly most of the workers in the mills were women. The first factory recruited Yankee women from the area.
As Lowell expanded becoming the nation’s largest textile manufacturing center, the experiences of women operatives changed as well. With the pressure of competition overproduction became a problem, and high profits of the early years declined. Wages were reduced and the pace of work was stepped up. The women did not accept these changes without any protest.
In 1834 and 1836 they went on strike to protest wage cuts. Between 1843 and 1848 they had petition campaigns aimed at reducing the hours of labor in the mills. These women were very close with each other, and they all shared the same values. This made it easy for them to be so strong in their protests. Most of these women working in the Lowell mills were housed in company boarding homes. In 1836 more than seventy-three percent of females employed by the Hamilton Company lived in houses next to the mills.
They lived in close quarters which played a role in the growth of the community. These boarding houses were the center of social life for these women after their long work days. They ate together, talked with one another, read books together, and also wrote letters. The community of women operatives developed in a setting where women worked and lived together twenty four hours a day.
When the women went on strike in 1834 they marched to numerous mills in an effort to induce others to join them. They said they would not go back to work until their demands were met. They wanted the wages they were getting before the reduction, to be received all of them as one, and if they do not have enough money to carry them home they shall be supplied.
The first strike was brief and failed. By the next week the women either went back to work or left town. The first strike was important not because is failed or succeeded but because it took place. This showed the women were starting to have a voice in the workplace even if they were not being listened to yet.
In 1836 the women went on strike again.
Though the Industrial Revolution was supposed to bring an easier lifestyle to the world, however in reality only gave factory owners a chance to increase the amount of product they could produce within a shorter amount of time, and this prompted them to hire people desperate enough for jobs who would be paid in small sums of money to produce large amounts of product. Camelot on the Merrimack, this title is ironic, for Lowell was no fairy tale “Camelot.” For the girls, life in the textile factories was unmitigated
A multitude of mills going up created back water which hindered the mill’s wheels from turning more freely, but with more competitors came more jobs to the area. In addition to more work came the need for more workers. Francis Lowell of Massachusetts decided to make a wholesome atmosphere to attract young country women to his mill to work. He offered wholesome living with room and board, decent pay, strict rules, and curfews to enforce the safety of the girls that worked for him. These workers came to be known as the “Lowell girls”.
The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national strike in American history and it came about during a period of unrest with labor unions and controversy regarding the role of government in business.5 The strike officially started when employees organized and went to their supervisors to ask for a lowered rent and were refused.5 The strike had many different causes. For example, workers wanted higher wages and fewer working hours, but the companies would not give it to them; and the workers wanted better, more affordable living quarters, but the companies would not offer that to them either. These different causes created an interesting and controversial end to the Pullman strike. Because of this, questions were raised about the strike that are still important today. Was striking a proper means of getting what the workers wanted? Were there better means of petitioning their grievances? Was government intervention constitutional? All these questions were raised by the Pullman Strike.
The Women’s Trade Union League was established in 1903 during the height of the Progressive Era. Elite women and eventually working women as well, set out to improve the lives of the poor, working class women in the United States by promoting to both men and women the importance of the workingwomen coalescing into unions. They believed that organization and education were the keys to enacting change in the workplace and protecting the workingwomen’s economic interest. The WUTL gave women a place to meet and discuss important issues regarding their problems with their employers and their working conditions while also providing a mechanism for funding the strikes as well as support and experience. This was the role they played in the many strikes that took place in the early 20th century and they continued to believe that unions were the answer to the struggles that women faced as a result of industrialization. After the war and the granting of Women’s suffrage, the issues that faced the Women’s Trade Union League took an international turn in reaction to the devastation of the World War and the WTUL also faced internal debate with women in the United States about the legitimacy of the protective laws put in place that restricted the amount of hours women could work. Acknowledging the ultimate failure of their efforts for the past 20 years to organize the female labor force or integrate them into the male unions, they turned their attention to defending protective laws and promoting peace as a means of fulfilling their purpose of improving the welfare of working women.
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...
Mexican farm workers were demanding higher wages. Mexican women played key roles in the strike. Weber writes, “from the beginning of the strike women of all ages--older women,with long hair who wore the rebozos of rural Mexico, younger women who had adopted flapper styles, and young girls barley in their teens--went on the picket lines.”(Weber, 96). Their jobs were to stop the strike breakers. They would do things such as taunt them, and in some situations it would become very violent. The strike would end, but the stories of what these women did still
This tragedy brought attention to the unregulated/unsafe working conditions that the women who had lost their lives were experiencing. In response, the Ladies Waist-makers Union formed one of the world’s largest female strikes. This is an example of a successful strike that was effective in achieving higher wages and improved working conditions. This strike marked the significance of women workers organizing and achieving bargaining Pullman Palace Car Company made luxury railroad cars. The people who lived in the town of Pullman payed rent by deductions from their wages.
When all the men were across the ocean fighting a war for world peace, the home front soon found itself in a shortage for workers. Before the war, women mostly depended on men for financial support. But with so many gone to battle, women had to go to work to support themselves. With patriotic spirit, women one by one stepped up to do a man's work with little pay, respect or recognition. Labor shortages provided a variety of jobs for women, who became street car conductors, railroad workers, and shipbuilders. Some women took over the farms, monitoring the crops and harvesting and taking care of livestock. Women, who had young children with nobody to help them, did what they could do to help too. They made such things for the soldiers overseas, such as flannel shirts, socks and scarves.
The Lowell textile mills were a new transition in American history that explored working and labor conditions in the new industrial factories in American. To describe the Lowell Textile mills it requires a look back in history to study, discover and gain knowledge of the industrial labor and factory systems of industrial America. These mass production mills looked pretty promising at their beginning but after years of being in business showed multiple problems and setbacks to the people involved in them.
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.
In the 1800's the construction of cotton mills brought about a new phenomenon in American labor. The owners needed a new source of labor to tend these water powered machines and looked to women. Since these jobs didn't need strength or special skills th...
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.
...e general public was finally beginning to recognize that workers had the right to both organize and strike. The federal government was also taking note of the plight of factory workers. In 1895, the Supreme Court stated that it was charged with the duty of regulating interstate commerce (Doc. H). Overall, labor unions produced chain reactions that caused others to make strides toward equality within society.
Harriet Hanson Robinson, a “Lowell Girl,” Describes her labor in a textile mill, 1831 pg.239
Women were not only separated by class, but also by their gender. No woman was equal to a man and didn’t matter how rich or poor they were. They were not equal to men. Women couldn’t vote own business or property and were not allowed to have custody of their children unless they had permission from their husband first. Women’s roles changed instantly because of the war. They had to pick up all the jobs that the men had no choice but to leave behind. They were expected to work and take care of their homes and children as well. Working outside the home was a challenge for these women even though the women probably appreciated being able to provide for their families. “They faced shortages of basic goods, lack of childcare and medical care, little training, and resistance from men who felt they should stay home.” (p 434)