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Industrialization, Gender, and the Working Class

Historians tell stories. That’s what we do. Sometimes the stories are rambling, long, and boring (if you have the wrong teacher ☺). Sometimes (in the hands of a good practitioner) they sparkle and captivate. But the truth is, they’re all stories. That’s why “history” and “story” are the same word in several European languages. They are true stories, as far as the historian can make them accurate, depending on the sources and information available to him or her about the period and subjects in question.

Like authors of fiction, historians have to select the incidents and characters they want to include in their retelling, create some kind of plot line or narrative, provide a climax to the story (that is, what i mportant thing happened here? Why is this worth knowing or studying?), and then some sort of resolution (often with a moral to the story–we call that part analysis ).

Of course, there are important differences between historians and fiction writers, too. Historians are bound to the facts, at least as far as they can be discovered from incomplete historical records. We are not allowed to alter those facts, or omit the ones that are inconvenient for our analysis. And although we are trying to create a coherent story out of a mass of sometimes contradictory facts and records, at the same time, we are trying to make a true story, a story that captures some aspect of historical societies and past realities. A true story is in some ways an oxymoron---a contradiction in terms--- an unattainable goal that all historians strive towards, knowing that they can never completely succeed.

The Industrial Revolution and the Working Class: the Old Story

Before the rise of women’s history, there was an exciting story about industrialization and the rise of the working class, which I learned as an undergraduate during the 1970s and 1980s from such famous and classic “his-stories” as Edward Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class. Thompson was a labor historian, the term used for those who study the history of the workplace (esp. during industrialization) and the history of the working class. In many ways, industrialization is depicted in these stories as a terrible process, in which workers lost control over the work process. It involved a transition from producing goods in small artisanal shops, where the guild members set the pace and owned the tools–to the factory, where workers were subjected to harsh work rules, incredibly long hours, brutal and dangerous working conditions, and very low pay, on the very borders of survival). And while it’s important not to idealize the workplaces of the Early Modern period (before industrialization), it’s also true the that the Industrial Revolution did entail serious social and health costs for workers: it brought a loss of workers’ autonomy, breaking the workers to factory discipline, forcing them to live amidst rapid urbanization and terrible living conditions in the mushrooming European cities.

The workers in the stories I learned as an undergraduate, which described the process of industrialization, were almost all male workers. Women hardly appear in Making of the English Working Class, except in religious organizations, or as the wives of certain men. The stories I learned about industrialization focused almost exclusively on factory work of various kinds, and with the important exception of textile factories (where the work force was heavily female) most of the industries created in the early phases of industrialization were largely populated by men (industries such as steel production, coal mining, and the railroads).

Then, in the second part of the story I was told, the workers strike back. Subjected to terrible working conditions, low wages, and political repression, the men in these stories roused themselves during the second half of the nineteenth century, particularly. They began to band together into labor unions and working class political groups. They developed what Marxists (and later, all historians) came to call class consciousness , an awareness of themselves as a group, and a strong desire to organize in order to improve their situation. They began to organize strikes, lobby for greater political representation (such as the right to vote, regardless of income, for all men), and created their own working-class political parties in almost every European nation, etc.

Ultimately, workers organized into unions did achieve enormous improvements in their wages and working conditions and in their political status. In a few nations, they even made a socialist revolution, and tried to create a workers’ state.

Women don’t figure much in this part of the story, either. Historians said that women had interrupted and unsteady work histories (going in and out of the workforce as they had children, or as those children grew up), that women had limited involvement in working class unions and politics, and that women had less class consciousness than did the men of their class. Female workers were not leading characters in the stories written by labor historians like Edward Thompson, and with a few exceptions, women did not play leading roles in the stories written about working class organizations like the Labour Party in Britain, or the Social Democratic Party in Germany.

Gendering the Story: Women and Industrialization

This was the state of the “his-stories” when I was an undergraduate in the late 1970s and 1980s. Around that time, however, the first female labor historians began to go to work, doing research about women’s roles during industrialization. If we think of labor history as a tapestry that depicts a story or pageant about the history of work, production, and the workplace---- the women’s historians were embroidering on the story, adding new panels (chapters), new colors, and characters, supplementing rather than challenging male labor historians. They wrote women into the story in a more complete and detailed fashion.

Early female labor historians like Louise Tilly and Joan Scott examined working class women’s life histories and work histories. They said that the early labor historians were wrong: it wasn’t that women didn’t work, it was that they had to juggle their responsibilities for their families with income earning. Women had moved in and out of factories in some areas (but not all) but the new women’s historians pointed out that female workers were always earning income–they did what was called “piece work” (producing clothing by the piece, for middlemen who outsourced clothing manufacture), did the laundering of other people’s laundry at home (as washerwomen), or ran small businesses out of their homes.

Women’s historians added to the story, by showing how the male breadwinner (who might well work in a factory) had his paycheck supplemented by the earnings of the wife and children. By combining the husband’s wage with the money earned by his wife and children, the working class family shared a pooled family income, that allowed the household to survive. Women had “worked,” historians proved: but they had often done so in jobs that were “off the books.” Women’s work was thus transient, done at home, and thus in jobs that didn’t show up in government records, or even very much in the consciousness of men, who often seemed unaware of how much the wife contributed to the family’s survival.

Women’s historians also looked at women’s social roles, demonstrating how women knit the social fabric together. Men might carry the labor unions with their activism and membership, women’s historians said, but working class women carried the neighborhood. Poor women knit together communities, looking after each other’s children, sharing work, maintaining ties to neighbors, relatives, people back in the village. Far from being the silent, invisible actors of the early labor histories, women’s historians concluded, working class women were really at the heart of the working class family and community.

Gendering Skill

This new women’s history was a good addition to the older stories, a necessary supplement covering a group that had been omitted from the stories before. And up to about 15 years ago, that was enough for female labor historians. But then another phase of research began. Women’s historians began to look at the influence of gender on the process of class formation and industrialization. This means not just adding women to the already established plot line and narrative. It means, re-writing the story in drastic ways, to show how ideas about gender influenced both men’s and women’s approach to work, their labor unions, and their political organizations. In this unit, I want to outline the role that gender played in shaping some of the core elements of the story: work skills; wage levels; and class consciousness

That skill is an inherently gendered concept is something I discussed in the first class unit. Before industrialization, “skill” often defined in terms of guild training and membership. Work done by women outside of the guild system, no matter how much experience and training it might demand (like weaving or cheese-making or other dairy work) was simply not seen as “skilled.” “Skilled” work was, by definition, something that you could learn within a guild only, as you were trained as an apprentice or journeyman. And since very few women’s trades were allowed to organize within guilds, most women’s jobs were NOT seen as “skilled.”

This idea of men’s work as “skilled” and women’s work as “unskilled” was carried over into the new industrial workplaces, as well. Within the factory, work usually strictly divided by sex–some jobs were for women, and some for men. And the work done by men much more likely to be defined as “skilled,” although these distinctions can often seem quite arbitrary and even meaningless to us today. But it is a carry-forward of the gendered ideas about skill that had been established by the guild system.

In industries where women were simply not employed and thus not present, there were not so many tensions about “skill,” since the notion of “skill” was not needed to divide up and separate men’s jobs and women’s jobs within the same industry. But in textile production and the clothing industry, where women were present, tensions about “skills” and preserving the division between men’s and women’s work were often very strong.

In Germany, this dynamic was clear in the industry of cotton weaving, a form of manufacturing that industrialized early, and generally employed women as unskilled labor for low rates. Women were able to enter this area of manufacturing as it industrialized, because employers wanted cheap labor, and could pay women less. Cotton weaving was therefore considered to be “unskilled.” But at the same time, silk and velvet weaving were seen as “skilled” work that was done by men. In the silk and velvet production industries, there was a slower development of the technology necessary for power weaving (which slowed down the process of industrialization) plus stronger guild associations among silk and velvet weavers (and the guilds fought against mechanization). These two differences allowed hand weavers of silk and velvet (men who headed family weaving businesses, with wives as their assistants) to delay and slow down the process of industrialization in velvet and silk production.

But in the cotton industry, where these factors did not exist, by the mid-19th century, cotton weaving was almost entirely industrialized. As a result, the (largely female) workforce received lower wages, and the work in cotton weaving (unlike velvet and silk weaving) was seen as naturally “feminine” and “unskilled”. Even after velvet production brought into factories and mechanized (a few decades after this had happened in cotton production), male weavers fought against bringing women workers into velvet and silk factories. The male weavers argued that velvet weaving was too “skilled” for women. For many decades, these male weavers were successful–women were kept out of velvet weaving for most of 19th century, and thus male wages stayed higher in that industry.

Women’s work was not only seen as “unskilled,” but often as dishonorable, if it competed with male workers for lower wage (women workers were seen as what union workers today call “scabs”----unskilled, unorgranized, unfair competition). Again–one flashpoint in the industrial world here was clothing production, since this was an area where women were hired as cheap labor early on. In tailoring shops, male tailors had allowed wives to assist them in clothing production, in earlier generations. Now, there was increasing tension about female relatives assisting male tailors. Such work was now seen as “dishonorable,” because women were not true guild members.

Tailor’s guilds and journeymen’s groups had strong group identity (the men in the guilds went drinking and celebrating together after the work day was over)– guild members sang songs denouncing masters who employed women in shops. In some areas, male tailors refused to work for masters who allowed women in the shop, or even to work next to other tailors who had formerly worked in shop where women were also employed.

The Gendered Wage

Linked to the strong association of “skilled” with masculine work and “unskilled” with women’s work was a wage hierarchy. Women were cheaper labor, because they were “unskilled.” Women employed in full-time jobs generally earned about half the wages of men employed full-time in similar positions. Even the most skilled female laborers only earned about 2/3 of what “unskilled” men earned. Thus, a study of English cotton mills done in 1833 found that by the age of 35, the average male worker earned 22 shillings per week, while the average female worker earned 8 shillings per week.

These wage disparities were due to many factors, most of them influenced by gender. Workers were paid on the basis of what employers thought was supply (ample supply of workers for a given industry= lower wages) and women were almost always in greater supply. This was because women workers had more limited range of job options, since many industries would not employ women at all. Because they had many fewer job choices, women thus “flooded” the few industries where they could apply for jobs, thus driving down wages in those areas. As a job category became thus “feminized” with lower wages, the remaining men in these fields usually switched to other industries (since men had a greater array of choices), thus reinforcing the “feminization” and trend towards lower wages in the now “feminized” industries (like cotton weaving) that women were in. It was a vicious cycle, in some cases.

Wage differences also due to “skill,” although often skill was in the eye of the beholder. But wage differences often also due to the difference in how employers thought of men’s and women’s wages–what employers thought one ought to pay men and women, what employers thought men and women ought to earn, and ought to be able to purchase with their wages. Men’s and women’s wages were strongly influenced by what employers thought each group of workers needed.

Like women, men’s wages were influenced by supply of workers, their productivity, their skill and experience, but in the case of men, also by the idea (widely supported by male labor unions and many economists) that men ought to earn a “family wage” that is, enough to support a family. Men were thought of as “breadwinners” for a family unit, and many employers agreed that male workers ought to be given the wages appropriate to this role. The idea of a family wage (to be given to adult men, who were assumed to be heads of households) contrasted with what most workers were getting at the time, a living wage, which meant just barely enough money for one person to survive on it.

One British economist argued that a working class man’s wage ought to be increased, so that it could pay for “a well-drained dwelling, with several rooms, warm clothing with some changes of underwear, pure water, a plentiful supply of cereal food (bread or porridge) with a moderate allowance of meat and milk, and a little tea etc., some education, some recreation, and lastly sufficient money so that his wife will be freed from other work and enabled to perform properly her maternal and her household duties. ”

(italics there are mine)

Women were not thought of as breadwinners, even they often did have dependents (mothers or siblings that they had to support, or women workers might be widows with children). What was their wage to be? Women’s wages reflected not what was but what ought to be. They were seen as dependents themselves, since in theory all women ought to live with fathers or husbands. Thus, the debate over women’s wages was a struggle between on the one hand, the supporters of a “living wage” (who argued that female workers should be paid enough to avoid starving and live at a very simple level) and others who (as you see below) thought that women should be paid even less. These “living wage” advocates were the champions of women, who pointed out that some women did have to support themselves.

But on the other hand, those who argued for a “living wage” for women came up against employers who argued that women should be given a “supplementary wage” (an amount well below the living wage), simply to supplement the paycheck of a male breadwinner. Employers assumed that all women lived with fathers or husbands, who had a “breadwinner” paycheck, and thus the women’s paychecks only had to “supplement” this larger, male paycheck.

The discussion of women’s wages among economists, employers, and labor union leaders was quite different from the discussions of men’s wages. Even the “living wage” supporters for women were trying to figure out what was the minimum needed for survival–what they thought women ought to have. And this “ought” did not include supporting dependents (enough to support a child or elderly mother). It meant only enough to ensure the woman’s own survival.

The budgets drawn up by experts generally only opted for bare necessities. After doing extensive surveys of working women’s budgets, economists included almost nothing beyond bare subsistence. A typical survey was that published in an English magazine in 1910. It showed sympathy for the girl who “ate no breakfast,” whose “luncheon consisted of coffee and rolls for ten cents,” and who “as she had no place in her room to do laundry, paid 21 cents a week to have it done.” Her weekly budget was as follows: lodging, 42 cents; food, $1.40; washing, 21 cents; clothing and all other expenses, $1.97: total, $4.00 a week. The budgets showed that if a women lived alone, she would have to exercise the strictest thrift, self-discipline and restraint. The economists who made up such budgets argued that employers ought to pay women at least enough to live at this level. They did not argue that women might want even more–enough for recreation, for example, to ride a trolley to the park or the seaside on Sundays, for example, or to go to a dance hall.

The other side of the debate, the supplementary wage employers, was also well-represented in these debates about women’s wages. The 1910 magazine survey found many employers who were quite clear that they did not expect women to live on what they were paid. A stenographer described how a lawyer she worked for had refused to pay her more since “he expected that young women had friends [that is, boyfriends or relatives] who helped them out.” A budding newspaper reporter was told by her editor that his “rule is never to employ a woman who must depend entirely upon my salaries.”

He only hired women who had family members to help support them, in other words.

Women’s wages were thus strongly influenced by what employers perceived their “wants” to be–what they ought to have, and whether they ought to be dependents of a male relative.

Wages had risen for many employees, male and female, due to unionization and minimum wage laws by the 1920s. Some employers, like General Electric or big automobile manufacturers, began to even introduce benefits, such as life insurance or pensions. But again, these benefits were influenced by gender. Male workers were assumed to be breadwinners, who need life insurance and pensions in order to support women or children. Female workers were not seen in this way, and usually not given these new benefits. Instead, many corporations offered female employees things that were thought to appeal to women: dances, cooking classes, picnics, and clubs, or nicely decorated locker rooms for female workers. (pretty locker rooms and cooking classes were heaper than pensions, too).

Employers adopted often self-fulfilling policies that ensured that women were not breadwinners, and would be forced to be economically dependent if they married: many governments and corporations had explicit policy that women would be fired when they married. This was called the “celibacy rule” in some European cultures: if you got married (became non-celibate), you lost your civil service or corporate position and were fired immediately. Married women were not allowed to hold such positions (e.g., teachers, librarians, or many white collar jobs) until the 1930s and even in some areas, until after WWII, because the feeling among employers was that married women should be at home, looking after their families. Working mothers were seen very negatively in popular culture: as neglectful of their children (because they worked) but also as mediocre employees (since they couldn’t devote themselves fully to their jobs).

Gendering Class Consciousness

The difference between male and female workers in their wages, in whether their work was perceived as “skilled,” and the powerful ideal that men ought to be breadwinners---- that a man was judged on whether he was a good provider---- these things all added up to shape the consciousness of male workers, as expressed in their labor unions and political parties. The last and most recent change that female labor historians have come to make in the older story of class and industrialization is to argue that “class consciousness” was really implicitly gendered–that it was a “class and gender consciousness”–that the members of labor unions and working-class political parties were defining themselves as men and as workers.

The concept of a “breadwinner” came to be a very powerful one in the 19th century when it came to shaping ideas about masculinity and men’s roles, although it was seldom a reality (that is, few working class men earned enough so that their wives and children didn’t have to contribute to the family income). The earlier idea of masculinity was that of a male head of household, a somewhat different thing, which you saw in the Norton reading on “Founding Mothers and Fathers.”

The male head of household (in the pre-industrial, Early Modern concept of the family and gender roles) was, as you’ll recall, the governor of his dependents. Or at least he was supposed to be---which is why Mr. Pinion was such a disaster in the eyes of his community. In economic terms, he had been seen before industrialization as the head of a family business. He guided and oversaw the servants, wife, children, apprentices, etc., but they worked, too. No one thought that he was “supporting” his wife and children (as would be the case with the “breadwinner” after industrialization).

But industrialization and rise of bourgeoisie meant the creation of a class (the bourgeoisie) where women did not contribute to family income, and increasingly did not work in family businesses. And this became the standard for masculinity–the standard of being a “breadwinner” (a man who was the sole economic support for his wife and children) that working class men now increasingly aspired to achieve, too.

So, working class men in the late 19th century began to argue for the “family wage” (wages enough to support the family, in a modest way) in their unions, that they, too, could be “breadwinners.” And because they saw women as ideally belonging at home, many unions didn’t admit female members, and fought against women in the workplace. Working women, as many male union leaders saw it, were a “social evil” that ideally would one day disappear by paying working class men more, so that (like the bourgeoisie) working class wives and daughters, too, could stay at home.

This new ideal of the male breadwinner influenced working class men’s political leaders in many other ways. For example, in Britain, men’s labor unions in the 1920s and 1930s successfully opposed the introduction of substantial “child allowances” paid to mothers. “Child allowances” (a small sum of money paid each month to each mother by the husband’s employer or in some areas, by the state) were introduced in France during this period, and were widely advocated by women’s organizations in Britain, as a way of guaranteeing poor mothers a minimum income to feed their children with.

But British labor unions rejected this idea (although they might well have been able to persuade the British government to begin to pay such allowances to British mothers). Labor union leaders argued that women should NOT have their own separate source of income–the money that employers and state might have contributed to child allowances should instead go into the paychecks of male “breadwinners”, who should control all family income. As a result, Britain did not introduce any meaningful system of child allowances, although France and a few other nations did do so.

In Britain, male workers also linked their claim for the expansion of voting rights to role as breadwinner and married father. The Chartist movement of Britain of 1840s, which tried to reform political system and give working class men the right to vote (at that time, only upper class and bourgeois men could vote in most elections), strongly argued that working class men deserved the right to vote because they were breadwinners and heads of families. Thus, the Chartist movement linked political and citizenship status to family roles in a way that justified votes for all men, but not for any women.

So the moral of my story here is that once labor history is rewritten from the standpoint of gender, the story changes. It becomes more fragmented in a way, since it becomes necessary to view the story from multiple standpoints: from the standpoint of male and female workers, for example. The story also becomes less inspiring, in some ways, too–since working class men are now seen as not only champions of the downtrodden and exploited male workers (which they most surely were) but now also as men whose politics were powerfully influenced by an ideal of gender that would tend to permanently place women in the role of dependents, and thus work to keep women’s wages down at a very low level, and to segregate women into the lowest status jobs.

It becomes a more complicated story, with a more difficult and complex plot line, But I think that this new version of the story does do in a better way what historians are supposed to do, after all: it comes closer to recapturing historical reality.

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