At the end of nineteenth century men and women migrated from rural areas to urban areas for industrial work (Smith, p.142). This change ushered in the system of wage labor which became the way most members of lower class gained income. However, wages for workers were incredibly low (Smith, p.145). The blooming trend among the middle-class of the head of household as the only working individual of the family was completely unattainable for working class families. It was a necessity for lower-class women to work to support the family as well as maintain their role as mother and keeper of the home (Smith, p.273). Wage labor introduced a new way of life for women that included bouts of extreme poverty, intense labor, and a change in their relations with men. Working women in the industrial age faced unsatisfactory to even dangerous relations with men from marital relations, sexual coercion, and sexual harassment. Such negative relations were due to working women’s vulnerability in law, economic standing, and the popular negative view of the working woman. For most working class women marriage was not a matter of emotion but a matter of necessity for survival. Wages were so low for the working class that women would never have any form of meat in their diets and were forced to rely on low quality foods to survive, such hardship is described by a textile worker who lamented on contents of her pantry: “butter we never have. A roast of meat none of us ever sees (Smith, p.147). In “The Struggle for The Breeches: Plebian Marriage” Anne K. Clark explains that marriage was seen as an opportunity for working class men and women to pool their wages together (Clarke, p.121). Frau Hoffman expresses this notion when she discloses the groom’s fir... ... middle of paper ... ...age between her mother and father in which she remarks that her “father had particularly admired [her] mother for her sweetness” (Beeton, p. 67). Also the barmaid from the primary sources does receive help from a male figure who accompanied her home and made sure she was not “molested” (Beeton, p. 260). An elderly working woman, Frau Hoffman, describes a rather positive and long marriage between her and her husband and stresses that a woman must “be faithful and good to her husband and honor and love him” (Beeton, p.364). But due to the extreme poverty found in the working class, the conditions in factories, and the evidence in popular songs for the abuse of women it can be assumed that many working class women did not experience pleasant marriages and their economic and legal vulnerability allowed for negative male relationships to occur for a majority of women.
Hollingsworth and Tyyska discuss the employment of women in their article, both wage work and work performed outside of the “paid labour force.” (14). They also look at work discrimination of women based on gender and marital status. They argue that disapproval of married women working for wages during the Depression was expressed not only by those in position of power, such as politicians, but also by the general public and labour unions. They suggest that the number of women in the workforce increased as more young wives stayed working until the birth of their first child and older women entered the workforce in response to depression based deprivation. Hollingsworth and Tyyska also give examples of work that married women did that was an extension of their domestic duties such as babysitting for working mothers or taking in laundry. They also state that some women took in boarders, sold extra produce from gardens, or ran make-shift restaurant operations out of their homes.
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.
Even before this event, the struggles of women in society were surfacing in the media. Eliza Farnham, a married woman in Illinois during the late 1830s, expressed the differing views between men and women on the proper relations between a husband and wife. While Farnham viewed a wife as being “a pleasant face to meet you when you go home from the field, or a soft voice to speak kind words when you are sick, or a gentle friend to converse with you in your leisure hours”, a recently married farmer contended that a wife was useful “to do [a man’s] cookin and such like, ‘kase it’s easier for them than it is for [men]” (Farnham, 243).
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).
"The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts a woman in isolation, struggling to cope with mental illness, which has been diagnosed by her husband, a physician. Going beyond this surface level, the reader sees the narrator as a developing feminist, struggling with the societal values of the time. As a woman writer in the late nineteenth century, Gilman herself felt the adverse effects of the male-centric society, and consequently, placed many allusions to her own personal struggles as a feminist in her writing. Throughout the story, the narrator undergoes a psychological journey that correlates with the advancement of her mental condition. The restrictions which society places on her as a woman have a worsening effect on her until illness progresses into hysteria. The narrator makes comments and observations that demonstrate her will to overcome the oppression of the male dominant society. The conflict between her views and those of the society can be seen in the way she interacts physically, mentally, and emotionally with the three most prominent aspects of her life: her husband, John, the yellow wallpaper in her room, and her illness, "temporary nervous depression." In the end, her illness becomes a method of coping with the injustices forced upon her as a woman. As the reader delves into the narrative, a progression can be seen from the normality the narrator displays early in the passage, to the insanity she demonstrates near the conclusion.
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...
In the poem "To the Ladies," Lady Mary Chudleigh demonstrates affinity between wife and servant (1) through the use of a controlling metaphor. She describes a wife’s role by depicting it through ideas that are strongly associated with slavery. Chudleigh’s use of deigning diction, her description of the wife’s submissive actions, and her negative attitude towards the perceived future of a woman who gets married show the similarity among wife and servant (1). Chudleigh presents this poem as a warning to women who are not yet married, and as an offering of regret to those who are.
Weiner, Lynn Y. From Working Girl to Working Mother: The Female Labor Force in the United States, 1820-1980. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 1985.
The industrialization of the nineteenth century was a tremendous social change in which Britain initially took the lead on. This meant for the middle class a new opening for change which has been continuing on for generations. Sex and gender roles have become one of the main focuses for many people in this Victorian period. Sarah Stickney Ellis was a writer who argued that it was the religious duty of women to improve society. Ellis felt domestic duties were not the only duties women should be focusing on and thus wrote a book entitled “The Women of England.” The primary document of Sarah Stickney Ellis’s “The Women of England” examines how a change in attitude is greatly needed for the way women were perceived during the nineteenth century. Today women have the freedom to have an education, and make their own career choice. She discusses a range of topics to help her female readers to cultivate their “highest attributes” as pillars of family life#. While looking at Sarah Stickney Ellis as a writer and by also looking at women of the nineteenth century, we will be able to understand the duties of women throughout this century. Throughout this paper I will discuss the duties which Ellis refers to and why she wanted a great change.
One of the most significant sociological changes in the nation's history began in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the ramifications are still being felt today. This change consisted of the large numbers of women who entered the work force. This dramatic change in American society was accompanied by a great deal of controversy and prejudice directed towards women. It was predicted that female employment would bring about the downfall of society and the change of the American family.
Many middle class and elite women followed the same thinking pattern of most men in the nineteenth century that women should focus on preserving their morality, improving society, and being domestic subservient wives (lecture). This ideal of true womanhood directly conflicted with working class women’s definition of womanhood and the changing work patterns in the United States. Because middle class and elite woman did not view working women as “true women,” these women often ostracized working class women, which caused tension and increased class divisions (lecture). Additionally, this class rift between women most likely contributed to the slow progress of the women’s rights movement that began in the later half of the nineteenth century. As men were reluctant to accept the shifting definitions of womanhood, many middle class and elite women were also hesitant to accept these changes and began to relate to lower class women in a more hostile
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...
During the Great War and the huge amount of men that were deployed created the need to employ women in hospitals, factories, and offices. When the war ended the women would return home or do more traditional jobs such as teaching or shop work. “Also in the 1920s the number of women working raised by fifty percent.” They usually didn’t work if they were married because they were still sticking to the role of being stay at home moms while the husband worked and took care of the family financially. But among the single women there was a huge increase in employment. “Women were still not getting payed near as equally as men and were expected to quit their jobs if they married or pregnant.” Although women were still not getting payed as equally it was still a huge change for the women's
During the 19th century middle to upper class women were faced with dichotomous roles. On one hand they were expected to be idle, fragile, not engaged in intellectual activities outside of the home. On the opposite hand these same women were expected to withstand the vagaries that were common during the 19th century such as the death of their husband or a reversal of their financial situation(i). This contradiction of roles bore heavily on women who often lacked power or control over their own lives(ii).
There are beasts to be fed, cattle to be milked, turf to be carried, whatever the driving rain and the mud; in spring and summer they must help to dig and plant and reap”(Henn.23). By all these duties the women are getting older before their time; at thirty- five obviously their beauty has gone. Nora sees Peggy Cavangh and Mary Brien as symbols of both of the time awaits her, and of the time that passes her by. But above all and beyond all these, the play records that conventional loveless marriages “arranged by matchmakers, dowry balanced against land and cattle”( Henn.23) which is customary in the eastern rural parts of Ireland. “ In no other country in the world is marriage undertaken so late in life, and perhaps in no other country in the world is there so high a proportion of the unmarried. Worse than the number of bachelors and old maids is the custom of deferring marriage until the man is almost sterile and the woman incapable of producing more than one or two children” ( Henn.23). people’s very mentality is opposite to the youthful union. The present system is actually originated because of the stress and poverty of the bygone age. But still regarded as the ideal one. What once was a necessity has become an accepted system. In the rural areas