The Women's Movement and Women's Employment in Nineteenth Century Britain

The Women's Movement and Women's Employment in Nineteenth Century Britain PDF Author: Ellen Jordan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113465748X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
In the first half of the nineteenth century the main employments open to young women in Britain were in teaching, dressmaking, textile manufacture and domestic service. After 1850, however, young women began to enter previously all-male areas like medicine, pharmacy, librarianship, the civil service, clerical work and hairdressing, or areas previously restricted to older women like nursing, retail work and primary school teaching. This book examines the reasons for this change. The author argues that the way femininity was defined in the first half of the century blinded employers in the new industries to the suitability of young female labour. This definition of femininity was, however, contested by certain women who argued that it not only denied women the full use of their talents but placed many of them in situations of economic insecurity. This was a particular concern of the Womens Movement in its early decades and their first response was a redefinition of feminity and the promotion of academic education for girls. The author demonstrates that as a result of these efforts, employers in the areas targeted began to see the advantages of employing young women, and young women were persuaded that working outside the home would not endanger their femininity.

The Women's Movement and Women's Employment in Nineteenth Century Britain

The Women's Movement and Women's Employment in Nineteenth Century Britain PDF Author: Ellen Jordan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113465748X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
In the first half of the nineteenth century the main employments open to young women in Britain were in teaching, dressmaking, textile manufacture and domestic service. After 1850, however, young women began to enter previously all-male areas like medicine, pharmacy, librarianship, the civil service, clerical work and hairdressing, or areas previously restricted to older women like nursing, retail work and primary school teaching. This book examines the reasons for this change. The author argues that the way femininity was defined in the first half of the century blinded employers in the new industries to the suitability of young female labour. This definition of femininity was, however, contested by certain women who argued that it not only denied women the full use of their talents but placed many of them in situations of economic insecurity. This was a particular concern of the Womens Movement in its early decades and their first response was a redefinition of feminity and the promotion of academic education for girls. The author demonstrates that as a result of these efforts, employers in the areas targeted began to see the advantages of employing young women, and young women were persuaded that working outside the home would not endanger their femininity.

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.

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century PDF Author: Margaret Fuller
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social history
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description


Women and Industrialization

Women and Industrialization PDF Author: Judy Lown
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780745602028
Category : Child labor
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description


The Women's Movement and Women's Employment in Nineteenth Century Britain

The Women's Movement and Women's Employment in Nineteenth Century Britain PDF Author: Ellen Jordan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134657471
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
In the first half of the nineteenth century the main employments open to young women in Britain were in teaching, dressmaking, textile manufacture and domestic service. After 1850, however, young women began to enter previously all-male areas like medicine, pharmacy, librarianship, the civil service, clerical work and hairdressing, or areas previously restricted to older women like nursing, retail work and primary school teaching. This book examines the reasons for this change. The author argues that the way femininity was defined in the first half of the century blinded employers in the new industries to the suitability of young female labour. This definition of femininity was, however, contested by certain women who argued that it not only denied women the full use of their talents but placed many of them in situations of economic insecurity. This was a particular concern of the Womens Movement in its early decades and their first response was a redefinition of feminity and the promotion of academic education for girls. The author demonstrates that as a result of these efforts, employers in the areas targeted began to see the advantages of employing young women, and young women were persuaded that working outside the home would not endanger their femininity.

Women's Work, 1840-1940

Women's Work, 1840-1940 PDF Author: Elizabeth Roberts
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521557887
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
This volume addresses some of the difficult issues surrounding women's work during a century of social upheaval, and demonstrates how hard it is to be precise about the nature and extent of women's occupations. It focuses on working-class women and the many problems relating to their work, full-time and part-time, paid and unpaid, outside and inside the home. Elizabeth Roberts examines men's attitudes to women's work, the difficulties of census enumeration and women's connections with trade unions. She also tackles in depth other areas of contention such as the effects of legislation on women's work, a 'family wage', and unequal pay and status. Dr Roberts' study provides a unique overview of an expanding field of social and economic history, while her survey of the available literature is a useful guide to further reading.

Women in Public, 1850-1900

Women in Public, 1850-1900 PDF Author: Patricia Hollis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136247890
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Assembling a full and comprehensive collection of material which illustrates all aspects of the emergent women’s movement during the years 1850-1900, this fascinating book will prove invaluable to students of nineteenth century social history and women's studies, to those studying the Victorian novel and to sociologists. Women’s pamphlets and speeches, parliamentary debates and popular journalism, letters and memoirs, royal commissions and the leading reviews, are all used to document the conflicting images of women: ‘surplus women’ and the issue of emigration; women’s work and male hostility to it; the opening of education by Emily Davies; the claim to equity at law; the attack on the sexual double standard, led by Josephine Butler; women’s public service from philanthropy – exemplified in a Mary Carpenter or Louisa Twining or Octavia Hill – to local government; and finally women’s entry into politics led by Lydia Becker. The contents range from Caroline Norton on her battle for child custody in the 1830s to Annie Besant’s inspiration of the match-girl’s strike in 1888, and from W. T. Stead on child prostitution to Mrs Humphrey War’s Appeal against female suffrage in 1889. The book was originally published in 1979.

British Women in the Nineteenth Century

British Women in the Nineteenth Century PDF Author: Kathryn Gleadle
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1403937540
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
This highly original synthesis is a clear and stimulating assessment of nineteenth-century British women. It aims to provide students with an in-depth understanding of the key historiographical debates and issues, placing particular emphasis upon recent, revisionist research. The book highlights not merely the ideologies and economic circumstances which shaped women's lives, but highlights the sheer diversity of women's own experiences and identities. In so doing, it presents a positive but nuanced interpretation of women's roles within their own families and communities, as well as stressing women's enormous contribution to the making of contemporary British culture and society.

In Search of the New Woman

In Search of the New Woman PDF Author: Gillian Sutherland
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107092795
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
A study of the 'New Woman' phenomenon, examining whether British women really achieved the economic independence to challenge social conventions.

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.