Rural Women Workers in Nineteenth-century England

Rural Women Workers in Nineteenth-century England PDF Author: Nicola Verdon
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 9780851159065
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
The range of women's work and its contribution to the family economy studied here for the first time. Despite the growth of women's history and rural social history in the past thirty years, the work performed by women who lived in the nineteenth-century English countryside is still an under-researched issue. Verdon directly addresses this gap in the historiography, placing the rural female labourer centre stage for the first time. The involvement of women in the rural labour market as farm servants, as day labourers in agriculture, and as domestic workers, are all examined using a wide range of printed and unpublished sources from across England. The roles village women performed in the informal rural economy (household labour, gathering resources and exploiting systems of barterand exchange) are also assessed. Changes in women's economic opportunities are explored, alongside the implications of region, age, marital status, number of children in the family and local custom; women's economic contribution to the rural labouring household is established as a critical part of family subsistence, despite criticism of such work and the rise in male wages after 1850. NICOLA VERDON is a Research Fellow in the Rural History Centre, University of Reading.

Rural Women Workers in Nineteenth-century England

Rural Women Workers in Nineteenth-century England PDF Author: Nicola Verdon
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 9780851159065
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
The range of women's work and its contribution to the family economy studied here for the first time. Despite the growth of women's history and rural social history in the past thirty years, the work performed by women who lived in the nineteenth-century English countryside is still an under-researched issue. Verdon directly addresses this gap in the historiography, placing the rural female labourer centre stage for the first time. The involvement of women in the rural labour market as farm servants, as day labourers in agriculture, and as domestic workers, are all examined using a wide range of printed and unpublished sources from across England. The roles village women performed in the informal rural economy (household labour, gathering resources and exploiting systems of barterand exchange) are also assessed. Changes in women's economic opportunities are explored, alongside the implications of region, age, marital status, number of children in the family and local custom; women's economic contribution to the rural labouring household is established as a critical part of family subsistence, despite criticism of such work and the rise in male wages after 1850. NICOLA VERDON is a Research Fellow in the Rural History Centre, University of Reading.

Women and Work in Britain since 1840

Women and Work in Britain since 1840 PDF Author: Gerry Holloway
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134512996
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
The first book of its kind to study this period, Gerry Holloway's essential student resource works chronologically from the early 1840s to the end of the twentieth century and examines over 150 years of women’s employment history. With suggestions for research topics, an annotated bibliography to aid further research, and a chronology of important events which places the subject in a broader historical context, Gerry Holloway considers how factors such as class, age, marital status, race and locality, along with wider economic and political issues, have affected women’s job opportunities and status. Key themes and issues that run through the book include: continuity and change the sexual division of labour women as a cheap labour force women’s perceived primary role of motherhood women and trade unions equality and difference education and training. Students of women’s studies, gender studies and history will find this a fascinating and invaluable addition to their reading material.

Transforming Women's Work

Transforming Women's Work PDF Author: Thomas L. Dublin
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501723820
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
"I am not living upon my friends or doing housework for my board but am a factory girl," asserted Anna Mason in the early 1850s. Although many young women who worked in the textile mills found that the industrial revolution brought greater independence to their lives, most working women in nineteenth-century New England did not, according to Thomas Dublin. Sketching engaging portraits of women's experience in cottage industries, factories, domestic service, and village schools, Dublin demonstrates that the autonomy of working women actually diminished as growing numbers lived with their families and contributed their earnings to the household. From diaries, letters, account books, and censuses, Dublin reconstructs employment patterns across the century as he shows how wage work increasingly came to serve the needs of families, rather than of individual women. He first examines the case of rural women engaged in the cottage industries of weaving and palm-leaf hatmaking between 1820 and 1850. Next, he compares the employment experiences of women in the textile mills of Lowell and the shoe factories of Lynn. Following a discussion of Boston working women in the middle decades of the century-particularly domestic servants and garment workers-Dublin turns his attention to the lives of women teachers in three New Hampshire towns.

Industry and Politics in Rural France

Industry and Politics in Rural France PDF Author: Raymond Anthony Jonas
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801428142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Men stayed on the farms, and women departed for the mills.

Women Workers in the Industrial Revolution

Women Workers in the Industrial Revolution PDF Author: Ivy Pinchbeck
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136936904
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
First Published in 2004. It is often assumed that the woman worker was produced by the Industrial Revolution, and that since that time women have taken an increasing share in the world's work. This theory is, however, quite unsupported by facts. In every industrial system in the past women have been engaged in productive work and their contribution has been recognised as an indispensable factor. This volume is devoted to women's employment inagriculture and the agrarian revolution.

Rural Englands

Rural Englands PDF Author: Barry Reay
Publisher: Red Globe Press
ISBN: 0333669185
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Rural Englands is the first general history of nineteenth-century English rural workers. Barry Reay provides a fresh perspective on England's rural past, reintroducing those often excluded from more traditional historical approaches, and stressing the diversity of working communities and the dynamism of rural life. Reay challenges stereotypes of country living, arguing that the extent of localization is so compelling that, instead of thinking of a unitary notion of 'rural England', we must think in terms of 'rural Englands'. Incorporating a wide range of source material, Reay examines and explores both representations and experiences of rural labour, including: - Varieties of settlement and landscape - Types of work carried out by men, women and children - Household survival strategies - Experiences of life and death - Leisure patterns - Repertoires of protest - Visual imagery - Literary representations.

Women at Work, 1860-1939

Women at Work, 1860-1939 PDF Author: Valerie G. Hall
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 1843838702
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
A major contribution to women's history, labour history, and economic and social history. This book examines three different groups of women - in coal mining communities, in inshore fishing communities and in agricultural labour. It demonstrates how the work these groups undertook was fundamental in shaping their experiences as women in different ways and shows that women's experiences varied within class as well as between classes. The book illustrates how mining women, despite being restricted to domestic roles, created, through meticulous housekeeping, a power base in their homes and rendered their husbands dependent on them, while a minority took so active a role in politics that they were said to be 'the backbone of the Labour Party'; how fisher women, engaging ina household economy reminiscent of pre-modern times, exercised great influence on financial decision making through their roles in baiting lines and selling fish; and how some single female agricultural labourers exercised considerable autonomy whereas those who were tied in a family economy had little independence. Overall, the book makes a very significant contribution to women's history, to labour history and to economic and social history. "This is a tremendously useful and relevant book for historians of women as well as social and labor historians." - Professor Joan Scott, Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton University VALERIE HALL is Professor Emerita of History at William Peace University, North Carolina

Annals of the Labouring Poor

Annals of the Labouring Poor PDF Author: K. D. M. Snell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521335584
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
Levels of employment, wage rates, welfare relief, sexual divisions of labor, apprenticeship patterns and seasonal economic fluctuations are included in this reassessment of the standard of living of rural labor during this period of England's industrialization.

Women, Work, and Wages in England, 1600-1850

Women, Work, and Wages in England, 1600-1850 PDF Author: Penelope Lane
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843830779
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
The work of women is recognised as having been fundamental to the industrialization of Britain. These studies explore how that work was remunerated, in studies that range across time, region and occupation. Topics include the changing nature of women's work, customary norms, and women and the East India Company.

Servants in Rural Europe

Servants in Rural Europe PDF Author: Jane Whittle
Publisher: People, Markets, Goods: Econom
ISBN: 9781783272396
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
This is the first book to survey the experience of servants in rural Europe from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. Live-in servants were a distinctive element of early modern society. They were typically young adults aged between 16 and 24 who lived and worked in other people's households before marriage. Servants tended to be employed for long periods, several months to years at a time, and were paid with food and lodging as well as cash wages. Both women and men worked as servants in large numbers. Unlike domestic servants in towns and wealthy households, rural servants typically worked on farms and were an important element of the agricultural workforce. Historians have viewed service as a distinct life-cycle stage between childhood and marriage. It brought both freedom and servility for young people. It allowed them to leave home and earn a living before marriage, whilst learning a range of agricultural and craft skills which reduced their dependence on their parents and increased their choice in marriage partners. Still, servants had limited rights: they were under the authority of their employer, with a similar legal status to children. In many countries the employment of servants was tightly controlled by law. Servants could demand their wages, and leave when the contract ended, but had to work long hours and had little say in their work tasks during employment. While some servants effectively became family members, trusted and cared for, others were abused physically and sexually by their employers. This collection features a range of methodologies, reflecting the variety of source materials and approaches available to historians of this topic in a range of European countries and time periods. Nonetheless, it demonstrates the strong common themes that emerge from studying servants and will be of particular interest to historians of work, gender, the family, agriculture, economic development, youth and social structure. JANE WHITTLE is Professor of Rural History at the University of Exeter. Contributors: CHRISTINE FERTIG, JEREMY HAYHOE, SARAH HOLLAND, THIJS LAMBRECHT, CHARMIAN MANSELL, HANNE ØSTHUS, RICHARD PAPING, CRISTINA PRYTZ, RAFFAELLA SARTI, CAROLINA UPPENBERG, LIES VERVAET, JANE WHITTLE