Throughout history there has always been a consistent trend, that of women not having a place in outside society. Women had always been confined to their homes to do the cooking and cleaning. In the early 1800s this changed however, as women started to ease themselves into the workplace. Women were brought into factories and were then called factory girls. This was a huge step in women’s rights as a whole. So, this paper argues that industrialization changed gender roles, specifically women’s, by giving them economic independence.
The biggest change for women was that they were able to work for wages. For most women it was their first time wage working. However, compared to the men of the time, they did not make very much. Harriet Hanson Robinson said, “We were paid two dollars a week and how proud I was when my turn came to stand up on the bobbin-box, and write my name in the paymaster’s book, and how indignant I was when he asked me if I could “write””(Robinson, 206). The fact that these women were earning money for the first time made them feel important and as if they even had a role in society. This is simply because they were making wages, which men had been making for years. The women were not looked at as very smart either, as Robinson explained that her paymaster asked if she knew how to write. This was before women had any rights, such as voting rights, but this was a big step in women becoming economically independent.
With money comes the advantages of spending it. Now that women had their own money, they could spend it on whatever they wanted to. They had never had the freedom to do this before, another new thing for women. De Wolfe said, “The textile mills offered a chance to participate directly in the economy, ea...
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...ted all of their paychecks. Berengera was never married, but their is not much of another reason why she would have an alias name.
In conclusion, industrialization proved to be a major era of successes for women. They were getting jobs and their first wages, which was a giant step from just being at the house under their husband’s rule. Although they were still hindered by certain events such as the mills wanting to reduce their wages and their husband’s taking their paychecks from them, they still made overall progress. Wage labor, even if it was only 2 dollars a week in Harriet Hanson Robinson’s case, is a start. It is better than making nothing like women had for all the years before. Overall, during industrialization women became less dependent on their husband’s because they started making their own money. This led women to become more economically independent.
Nineteenth century industrialism presented the United States with a unique and unprecedented set of problems, as illustrated through the works of Rebecca Harding Davis and Horatio Alger Jr. Although both authors felt compelled to address these problems in their writing, Rebecca Harding Davis’s grasp on the realities faced by the working poor and women was clearly stronger than Alger’s. Not only did Alger possess a naïve view on exactly how much control an individual has over their own circumstances, but he failed to address the struggles of women entirely. As a result, Alger conceived a rather romantic world where the old-fashioned American ideals of hard work, determination, and self-sacrifice enable a young boy to lift himself from poverty.
The literature of the nineteenth century cataloged the social, economical and political changes during its period. Through it many new concerns and ideologies were proposed and made their journeys through intellectual spheres that have endured and kept their relevance in our own period today. The literature, sometimes quite overtly, introduced the issues arising with the changes in society specifically due to the industrial revolution. In this mixture of new ideas was the question of women's labor and functions among this rapidly changing society. American authors as well as Victorian authors, like George Gissing and Mabel Wotton, explored these issues somewhat explicitly during this period. In America, Louisa May Alcott and Charlotte Perkins Gilman expressed these issues in short stories with strong implications of the dangers of unfulfilled or unsatisfying labor available to women.
...expecting this was the first time that women were sent away from home to work. This allowed them to make money on their own and that alone was a huge step toward women’s rights.
The changes that happened were women have taken on responsibilities instead of staying home and watching kids and doing laundry. Also having supper done for the husbands when they get home (some still do). But now women are half of the workers in the United States. When the nineteenth amendment was passed they were finally able to vote and started to take action as a republican or a democrat. The democratic and republican opened leadership jobs for women within their area(What
Women, like black slaves, were treated unequally from the male before the nineteenth century. The role of the women played the part of their description, physically and emotionally weak, which during this time period all women did was took care of their household and husband, and followed their orders. Women were classified as the “weaker sex” or below the standards of men in the early part of the century. Soon after the decades unfolded, women gradually surfaced to breathe the air of freedom and self determination, when they were given specific freedoms such as the opportunity for an education, their voting rights, ownership of property, and being employed.
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.
Even these limited options that provided women with opportunities were not available for the right reasons. The State Library of Victoria adds that, “Only the rising need for labor and the diminishing supply of manpower has forced this revolutionary adjustment”(10). Up until when the labor force desperately needed women, they received few opportunities and unequal pay. Even after many factories were forced to hire women workers they begrudgingly did...
Yet, as the years advanced toward the Civil War and Reconstruction, the public, monetary matters, and political functions for women started to transform. Women’s attire became chic, even for countryside and lower-class women. Their outfits, which began to “show the details bodies to their benefit,” showed the passion and power of women to rid themselves from the harsh commands of the male-dominated society. While most married women performed labors in the home—and their “inconveniences growing heavily” in regards to the expansion of non-farming jobs for men—it was not unusual for women mainly those who lost their husbands during the Civil War, to earn income. Even though the social and financial transformations brought about many rights for women, possibly the most important change during the 19th and early 20th centuries was made of the political transformations brought about by the numerous number of reform groups in regards to women’s liberties, such as ending slavery, voting rights , self-control, and education.
Impact on woman. The 19th amendment gave women the right to vote and soon granted them the same rights as men. In the beginning, woman were treated differently then men, women were expected to be obedient, do housework while men went to work, weren’t allowed to have the same education as men, they didn’t have the same rights as men. During the roaring twenties woman started to push for a change, they began to challenge society in many different aspects. For example, women started working in manufacturing. Although, it seemed as if they were now being treated better , men continued to put them below their class. Women held the least skilled jobs and received about half as much money as men did. Woman then began to take part in academic jobs and soon thrived in th...
In the 1890s, female factory workers were seen as a serious economic and social threat. Because women generally worked at the bottom of the pay scale, the theory was that they depressed the overall pay scale for all workers (Kessler-Harris 98). Many solutions were suggested at this time that all revolved around the idea of these women getting marriedóthe idea being that a married woman would not work for wages. Although this idea seems ludicrous from a modern perspective, it should be noted that t...
One of the things that the women went through was alienation by other women, who were deemed as “true” women or respectable women. The alienation was not because of money or race, not even religion, but because the women of the factory wore slacks. A working class woman was seen as less of a woman because a woman during those times was expected to stay at home and play house because of society’s view on gender roles. Plus, the women who worked at factories wore slacks, which was a big taboo during those times also. Women who wore skirts
In the nineteen twenties, the crusade for women’s rights gained a much greater force than it had in the past. What helped to make this possible was the economic upturn. The wages of workers increased, and women also began to weigh more heavily in the workforce. Beginning in World War One, American women began to take the jobs of their spouses to support their families. They continued to work even after the war was over. The amount of women making up the overall labor forced increased about two percent in the time between 1920 and 1930, totaling to about twenty two percent in 1930 (“Women in the Labor Force”). Although they did not take the same jobs that men did, women were still an important ...
The oppression and discrimination the women felt in this era launched the women into create the women’s right movement. The economic growth in the market economy women opportunity to work was very low Lucy Stone explained that the same society that pushes men forward keeps woman at home (Doc. H). Only low paying jobs were available such as factories, seamstress, or a teacher and in most states women had no control over their wages. Charlotte Woodward explained how she would sew gloves for a terrible wage but it was under rebellion she wished to choose her own job and the pay (Doc.E). The chart on Doc F explained how women between 1837-1844 dominated men as teachers in the Massachusetts Public School. The idea of the “cult of true womanhood” was that most respectable middle class women should stay at home and take care of the family and be the moral of the home. The advancement in the market economy gave women a chance to make their own money to be able to support themselves and work outside of the home. The nineteenth century was a ferment of reform such as the Second...
As women started working, patriarchal control of the family was upset (Faragher 400). Women were now bringing in income just like the men were and to them this was empowering. They now longer depended on a man to survive. Now that women were working many also wanted an education beyond high school. Women started going to college and with a better education were able to further increase the interest of the women 's rights movements (Knight 361). Despite these advances women still were not close to gaining equality to their male counterparts. However they did gain more control of the family’s well being.
Instead of being confined at home, the women joined labor forces, worked with wages, and experimented with different types of behavior that would have been unreasonable a few years back. Along with these dramatic changes were their fashion styles. This style changed their rights and relationships with others completely. With that change, a new woman was born. There were not many ways for women to stand up for themselves and what they believed in.