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206 Chapter 6 Early Modern Social and Economic Developments

76. Arthur Young Report on Rural Industry from Six-Months Tour Through the North of England During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, rulers, government officials, and well-educated private individuals became increasingly concerned with de- veloping methods of improving the economic prosperity of their countries. They began to travel around their own and foreign countries observing agricultural and manufacturing techniques, measuring productivity, and suggesting ways of improvement. One of the most prolific of these commentators was Arthur Young (1741-1820), who became widely known as an agricultural expert, with a reputation that extended from Russia to America. (Young corresponded with George Washington, who was very concerned about the state of American farm- ing.) On his travels, Young often found examples of rural proto-industry as well as farming, which he appears to have viewed as one means of helping to allevi- ate rural poverty, one of his great concerns. Young's analysis of English rural life has been criticized as overly biased toward his own interests in agricultural im- provements, but his reports on wages and prices have not been disputed .

. . .From thence to Boynton, the seat of Sir George Strickland. Sir George was so obliging as to shew me his woollen manufactory; a noble undertak- ing, which deserves the greatest praise. In this country, the poor have no other employment than what results from a most imperfect agri- culture; consequently three-fourths of the women and children were idle. It was this in- duced Sir George to found a building large enough to contain on one side a row of looms of different sorts, and on the other a large space for women and children to spin. The undertak- ing was once carried so far as to employ 150 hands, who made very sufficient earnings for their maintenance; but the decay of the woollen exportation reduced them so much, that now those employed are, I believe, under a dozen....

The town of Bedford is noted for nothing but its lace manufactory, which employs above 500 women and girls. They make it of various sorts up to 25 s. a yard; women that are very good

hands, earn 1 s. a day, but in common only 8 a. 9 d. and 10 d.1 Girls from eight to fifteen, earn 6 d. 8 d. 9 d. a day. This manufacture is of infi- nite use to the town, employing advantageously those who otherwise would have no employ- ment at all.

Sheffield contains about 30,000 inhabitants, the chief of which are employed in the manu- facture of hard-ware: The great branches are the plating-work, the cutlery, the lead works, and the silk mill.

In the plated work some hundreds of hands are employed; the men's pay extends from 9 s. a week to 60 I. a year: In works of curiosity, it must be supposed that dexterous hands are paid very great wages. Girls earn 4 s. 6 d. and 5 s. a week; some even to 9 s. No men are employed

ld. is the abbreviation for pence, and s. for shillings; one shilling equals twelve pence. Twenty shillings equals one pound, for which the abbreviation is I.

Excerpted from A Six Months Tour Through the North o/England by Arthur Young. © 1770. Reprinted in 1967 by Augus- tus M. Kelly, New York.

that earn less than 9 s. Their day's work, includ- ing the hours of cessation, is thirteen ....

Here is likewise a silk mill, a copy from the fa- mous one at Derby, which employs 152 hands, chiefly women and children; the women earn 5 or 6 s. a week by the pound; girls at first are paid but 1 s. or 1 s. 2 d. a week, but rise gradually higher, till they arrive at the same wages as the women. It would be preposterous to attempt a description of this immense mecha- nism; but it is highly worthy of observation, that all the motions of this complicated system are set at work by one water-wheel, which com- municates motion to others, and they to many different ones, until many thousand wheels and powers are set at work from the original simple one. They use Bengal, China, Turkey, Piedmont, and American raw silk; the Italian costs them 35 J. a pound, but the American only 20 s. It is a good silk, though not equal to the Piedmont. This mill works up 150 lb. of raw silk a week all the year round, or 7800 per annum. The erection, of the whole building, with all the mechanism it con- rains, cost about 7000 I....

Upon the whole, the manufacturers of Sheffield :nake immense earnings: There are men who are employed in more laborious works, that do not earn above 6 or 7 s. a week, but their number is very small; in general they get from 9 s. to 20 s. a .-eek; and the women and children are all em- ?loyed in various branches, and earn very good -zges, much more than by spinning wool in any :::--';:t: of the kingdom.

Leeds cloth market is well known, and has zeen often described. They make chiefly broad -- s from 1 s. 8 d. a yard to 12 s. but mostly of -e - 6 d. and 5 s. Good hands at this branch,

d earn about 10 s. 6 d. a week the year end, if they were fully employed; but as it is,

-"--:lOt make above 8 s. This difference of 2 s. - is a melancholy consideration. A boy of 13 ::.4. about 4 s. a week, some women earn by

--:. ing as much as the men. The men, at what _ call offal work, which is the inferior - es, such as picking, rinting, &c. are paid - an hour. Besides broad cloths, there are - shaloons, and many stuffs made at Leeds,

Work 207

particularly Scotch carnblets, grograms, burdies, some callimancoes, &c.2 The weavers earn from 5 s. to 12 s. a week; upon an average 7 s. Boys of 13 or 14, 5 s. a week. But they are all thrown out in bad weather; men in general at an average the year round, about 6 s. or 6 s. 6 d. a week. They never want work at weaving. Dressers earn from 1 s. to 3 s. a day, but are much thrown out by want of work. The women by weaving stuffs, earn 3 s. 6 d. or 4 s. a week. Wool-combers, 6 s. to 12 s. a week. The spinning trade is constant, women earn abour 2 s. 6 d. or 3 s. a week. Girls of 13 or 14, earn 1 s. 8 d. a week. A boy of 8 or 9 at ditto 2~d. a day; of six years old, 1 d. a day. The business of this town flourished greatly during the war,3 but sunk much at the peace, and continued very languid till within these two years, when it began to rise again.

PROVISIONS, &c.

Much oat bread eat, 10 or 11 ounces for 1 d. Butter, 8 d. per lb. 18 or 19 ounces.

Cheese, 4 Pork 4 d.

Murton, 4 Bacon, 7

Beef, 4 Veal, 2~

Milk, a pint in summer ~, in winter 1~ d. and 1 d.

Manufacturer's house rent, 40 s.

Their firing," 20 s.

From Asgarth returning by Crakehill, I took the road once more to Richmond; and from thence to Darlington, in the county of Durham. At that town is a considerable manufacture of Huckerback cloths, in which the workmen earn from 10 d. to 2 s. 6 d. a day, and women and children propor- tionably. One master manufacturer employs above 50 looms, and asserts, that he could easily set many more at work, and employ numerous women and children, if the idle part of the poor of the town could be persuaded to turn industri-

2These are all different types of cloth. 3The Seven Years War (1756-1763). 4Piring: heating.

•

208 Chapter 6 Early Modern Social and Economic Developments

ous; but numbers of hands, capable of working, remain in total indolence; and that in general, there need never be an unemployed person in Darlington .... The poor women and children in total idleness. They do not drink tea, but smoke tobacco unconscionably ....

Kendal is a well built and well paved town, pleasantly situated, in the midst of the beauti- ful country just described. It is famous for sev- eral manufactories; the chief of which is that of knit stockings, employing near five thousand hands by computation. They reckon one hun- dred and twenty wool-combers, each employ- ing five spinners, and each spinner four or five knitters; if four, the amount is two thousand four hundred; this is the full work, supposing them all to be industrious; but the number is probably much greater. They make five hun- dred and fifty dozen a week the year round, or twenty-eight thousand six hundred dozen an- nually: The price per pair is from 22 d. to 6 s. but in general from 22 d. to 4 s. some boys at 10 d. If we suppose the average 3 s. or 36 s. a dozen, the amount is 51,480 l.

The wool they use is chiefly Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and Durham: They generally mix Leicestershire and Durham together. The price 8 d. 9 d. and 10 d. per lb. They send all the manufactures to London by land carriage, which is said to be the longest, for broad wheel wag- gons, of any stage in England. The earnings of the manufacturers in this branch are as follow:

s. d. The combers, per week, - 10 6 The spinners, women, - 3 0 Ditto, children of ten or twelve years, - - - 2 0 The knitters, - - 2 6

All the work-people may have constant em- ployment if they please.

During the late war business was exceed- ingly brisk, very dull after the peace, but now as good as ever known.

The making of cottons is likewise a consider- able manufacture in this town. They are called Kendal cottons, chiefly for exportation, or

sailors jackets, about 10 d. or 1 s. a yard, mace of Westmoreland wool, which is very coarse, se[- ing only at 3 d. or 4 d. per lb. This branch ern- ploys three or four hundred hands, particulariy shearmen, weavers, and spinners.

The shearmen earn per week, The weavers, (chiefly women,) The spinners,

r, d.

10 6 4 3 3 3

All have constant employment. During the war this manufacture was more brisk than ever very dull after the peace, and has continued but indifferent ever since.

Their third branch of manufacture is the linsey woolsey, made chiefly for home con- sumption, of Westmoreland, Lancashire, and Cum- berland wool; the hands are chiefly weavers and spinners. The first earn 9 s. or 10 s. a week; the second (women) 4 s. 6 d. or 5 s.

The farmers and labourers spin their own wool, and bring the yarn to market every week: There are about five hundred weavers employed, and from a thousand to thirteen hundred spin- ners in town and country. The business during the war was better than it has been since, but is now better than after the peace.

Their fourth manufacture is the tannery, which employs near a hundred hands, who earn from 7 s. to 7 s. 6 d. a week. They tan many hides from Ireland.

They have likewise a small manufactory of cards, for carding cloth. Another also of silk: They receive the waste silk from London, boil it in soap, which they call scowering, then it is combed by women (there are about thirty or forty of them,) and spun, which article employs about an hundred hands; after this it is doubled and dressed, and sent back again to London. This branch is upon the increase.

PROVISIONS, &c.

Bread-oatmeal baked in thin hard cakes, called clap-bread, costs 1 d. per lb.

Cheese,3!d. Butter, 6!d. to 16 oz.

Mutton, 2 d. to 2! d.

l. The Renaissance notion of the artist as an individual creative genius stood in sharp contrast ro ideals for women that emphasized modesty and silence. How does Artemisia Gentileschi balance these two in the letters ro her patron? In what other ways is her situation shaped by her gender?

2. What kinds of activities do Glickl and her mother undertake and invest in? How is Glickl's business affected by her son's actions?

3. Why does Catharina Schrader become a midwife, and why does she decide to write up her cases? How would you compare her attitude toward her work and her sense of self with that of Glickl and Gentileschi?

4. According to Young's report, what types of work did proto-industry provide for women in England? How did their wages compare with those of men and with prices for basic commodities such as food and rent?

5. Based on these four sources, what factors most shaped the working life of women in early modern Europe?

Beef, 2~d. to 3 d. Veal,2!d.

Pork,4!d. Bacon,6!d.

Milk,! d. a pint.

Potatoes, 10 d. four gallons.

Poors house-rent, 30 s. ----firing, 45 s. to 50 s ...

At Warrington the manufactures of sail-cloth and sacking are very considerable. The first is spun by women and girls, who earn about 2 d. a day. It is then bleached, which is done by men, who earn 10 s. a week; after bleaching it is wound by women, whose earnings are 2 s. 6 d. a week; next it is warped by men, who earn 7 s. a week; and then starched, the earnings, 10 s. 6 d. a week. The last operation is the weaving, in which the men earn 9 s. the women 5 s. and boys 3 s. 6 d. a week.

The spinners in the sacking branch earn 6 s. a week, women; then it is wound on bobbins by women and children, whose earnings are 4 d. a

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS

Work 209

day; then the starchers take it, they earn 6 s. a week; after which it is wove by men, at 9 s. a week. The sail-cloth employs about three hun- dred weavers, and the sacking an hundred and fifty; and they reckon twenty spinners and two or three other hands to every weaver.

During the war the sail-cloth branch was very brisk, grew a little faint upon the peace, but is now, and has been for some time, pretty well recovered, though not to be so good as in the war. The sacking manufacture was also bet- ter in the war; but is always brisk.

The spinners never stand still for want of work; they always have it if they please; but weavers sometimes are idle for want of yarn, which, considering the number of poor within reach, (the spinners of the sacking live chiefly in Cheshire,) is melancholy to think of.

Here is likewise a small pin-manufactory, which employs two or three hundred children, who earn from 1 s. to 2 s. a week.

Another of shoes for exportation, that em- ploys four or five hundred hands, (rnen.) who earn 9 s. a week.

276 Chapter 8 The French Revolution, Industrialization, and Midcentury Working-Class Movements

100. Julie- Victoire Daubie Women Workers in France Julie-Victoire Daubie (1824-1874) was the first woman in France to receive the baccalaureat. In her activism and writings, she focused on the interrelated themes of women's education, work, and suffrage. In Du progres dans l'enseigne- ment primaire. Justice et Liberte! (1862; On the Progressof Primary Education. Justice and Liberty!), Daubie advocated for women's equality in education both as students and as women in the teaching profession. She regarded educational opportunities as the key to improving women's economic status and to securing their independence from men. Women's public schooling at this time was lim- ited to primary education and not until 1880 did the government legislate sec- ondary education for women. Daubie also argued for women's right to vote as essential for improving their social and economic status, although she believed that the franchise should be limited to men and women who were literate. Women's work, education, and moral condition are the subjects of Daubie's three-volume study, La femme pauvre aux xix siecle (1866-1870; The Poor Woman in the Nineteenth Century). Here, she uses the term femme pauvre in an expansive way to mean not only indigent women, but all women who had to work for a living. Unmarried herself, Daubie was especially concerned with the plight of single women who, along with widows, comprised nearly half of all adult women in midcentury France. In the first volume of La femme pauvre, she examines women's factory, domestic, and professional work. In these excerpts from the section "Quels moyens des subsistence ant les femmes?" ("HoV\'Do Women Earn a Living?"), Daubie discusses how industrialization transformed women's lives at work and at home with particular reference to women workers in the silk industry in Lyon.

If we turn to industry in the region of Lyon, we see that the single arondissement of Saint-Eti- enne employs more than thirty thousand work- ers of both sexes: one third of the 72,000 weaving looms of Lyon and two-thirds of those in the suburbs are occupied by women suspended fourteen hours a day from a strap so that they may simultaneously maneuver the looms with their feet and hands. According to Blanqui's study,' in 1848 they earned less than 300 francs per year. Moreover, the majority of Lyon's women workers are paid by

1Des classes ouurieres en France.

Translated by Lisa DiCaprio.

piecework. Their low wages are due to com- mercial crises and to the status of working women in our society. Conditions are better for women with sufficient skill to weave cloth of high quality, but those who prepare the looms and work thirteen hours a day earn very little.

The city of Lyon, this second capital of France, embodies for the Midi, as Paris does for the Nord, all the sorrows of the worker's exis- tence. Lyon's commerce is based on silk, of which five-sixths is sold abroad; therefore, it is especially vulnerable to industrial fluctuations which sometimes diminish production by 30 to 50 million francs per year. I do not know if free

rrade" has ameliorated the situation of the workers of Lyon, but that of the female workers will certainly worsen if motherhood and child- hood do not, at last, gain the protection that they deserve. Certain employers, for whom women workers are an easy prey, seduce and abandon them. One has even seen factory own- ers who, after hurling insults at women workers and debasing the value of their work, boast about these crimes with impuniry.'

The supervisors of the workshops who are not seducers in theit own right, remain indif- ferent and do not condescend to protect the girls for whom they alone are guardians.4

This neglect of women, excluded from pro- fessional schools and overwhelmed by the re- sponsibilities and sorrows of motherhood, has led large numbers of women workers to vice or to suicide. To cite only a few examples, one woman threw herself our of a window because, in her profound destitution, she could not pay her rent; another poisoned herself, as she de- spaired from not finding work; a third asphyxi- ated herself after an illness of fifteen days which exhausted all of her financial resources.5

One orphan with a festering finger infection at the end of her finger which prevented her from earning a living, became completely desti- tute. She attempted to enter a hospital, but was refused admission. Returning home in total de- spair, she killed herself by drinking a glass of vinegar mixed with pepper.

A poor girl worked day and night to support an aged mother, infirm and mentally unsound; but her own health weakened, her wages be- came insufficient, and she lacked work. Sue-

2Here and later when she speaks of a treaty of commerce, Daubie is referring ro the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty signed between England and France in 1860. This free trade treaty lowered the high tariffs that had protected French manufacture from international competition, especially from British facrories.-Ed.

3E. Buret, De la misere des classes laborieuses en France et an Angleterre. 4Louis Reynaud, Etudes sur le regime des manufactures, Paris, 1859.

5Prme du 2 octobre 1856, Siecle du 17 avril 1857.

Womenand Industrialization 277

cumbing under the weight of her heavy bur- dens, she killed herself, saying: "Since my life is useless, at least my death will enable my mother to enter a charitable institurion.,,6

It is noteworthy that almost all suicides carried out by women are motivated by desti- tution or social immorality. I will provide only two additional examples, citing again M. Brierre de Boismont who has sctupulously studied this sad situation in Paris. At the mo- ment of killing herself, he relates, one of the women wrote: "I have taken a thousand steps to find work; I have only found hearts of stone, or the debauched from whom I did not want to hear insulting propositions."

A young girl of great beauty, at the point of ending her life, left a note in which she an- nounced that, after having exhausted her re- sources, she had pawned all of her possessions at the Mont-de-Piete. "It was only up to me; I could have had a storehouse of riches, but I would rather die with integrity than live in sin."

Before seeking the rational remedies to such serious wrongs, it remains for us to examine the conditions of the workers who, numbering more than 300,000 in our manufactures, earn an average wage of one franc per day.

Many of the manufacturers require workers to travel long distances and separate mothers from their families for fifteen hours each day. Different economists have observed that it is the women workers who work harder than slaves. The boiling water of the basins is also painful to the fingers of the spinners who pull thread from the silk cocoons. The putrid ema- nations from the chrysalis cause various ill- nesses, called illnesses of the silkworm or of the basin, which lead to long periods of unemploy- ment.

From the carding and preparation of cotton, the women often contract a terrible pulmonary tuberculosis which is called cotton consump- tion in the creative idiom of the workshop. One

6Brierre de Boismont, De fa folie-suicide.

might believe that the constitutions of women, who are generally employed in these deadly forms of work, were especially suited to resist- ing their pernicious effects if the statistics of medical science and the reports of hygiene and public health councils did not show the con- trary, that for a given number of workers, women are more likely than men to contract this lung disease. A similar observation has been made concerning the manufacture of white lead, the processes requiring the use of mercury and arsenic, and the making of phosphate matches which cause necrosis of the jawbone, designated as a chemical illness. The industry, however, employs the weak and the strong without distinction for this work. The department of the Seine alone employs 1,500 men, women, and children in the match factories.

In the workshops for the printing of calico cloth, male workers have the best-paying jobs which require skill. The women workers em-

, played at Scottish finishing or stiffening of fab- rics spend their twelve hour workdays in temperatures which range from 26 to 40,de- grees and suffer greatly from the frequent shifts of temperature from hot to cold. These are manufactures where the women work in-all sea- sons, for twelve hours a day, with their feet in water.

This, then, explains the mortality rates which strike the children of working women. According to doctor Villerme,7 the children of the factory managers and other employers typi- cally reach the age of twenty-nine, while those of women workers in spinning, deprived of their mother's affection and milk, often suc- cumb before they are two years old. The death rate is generally two and three times higher among children of workers of all kinds as com-

pared to those of the well-to-do families." This appalling level of mortality is also attributed to the very young mother's custom of providing their infants with the milk of cows or goats, and of making them fall asleep with the assis- tance of drugs." When required to work to earn their daily bread, they silence their excessive crying with this slow poison.l"

The children of these workers who do sur- vive, already weakened by the deprivation of maternal care, are so sickly that in our manu- facturing towns two-thirds of them are unfit for military service.

We have seen that the causes of the injustices which reduce the wages of the woman worker are to be found in her ignorance and in the ab- sence of legislation that protects children.

Lacking the knowledge required for the in- telligent exercise of their occupations, these women often do not know how to read or write. In our manufactures and provincial industries, the proportion of women workers who are illit- erate is much higher than that of male workers. In addition, there is an excess of work for the woman in mechanized industry who does not know how to darn stockings, mend clothing, keep accounts of expenses, calculate savings, prepare meals; who has lost, along with the ti- tles of housewife and mother, the knowledge of the thousand productive tasks which, at every turn, contribute to the prosperity of the indi- vidual household and the national wealth.

278 Chapter 8 The French Revolution, Industrialization, and Midcentury Working-Class Movements

7Daubie is referring here ro the studies of facrory condi- tions in the cotton, wool, and silk industries carried Out by louis Rene Villerrne, such as the Tableau de /'etat physique et moral des ouvriers employes dans les manufactures de eaton, de laine, et de soie (Paris, 1840).-Ed.

BAccording ro information provided ro me by Dr. Devil- liers at the Academy of Medicine, children of weavers suf- fer a mortality rate of 35 percent in their first year, as compared ro the rate of 10 percent or 5 percent experi- enced by children of agricultural workers and the well-off.

9Most likely, this was laudanum, a form of liquid opium, which was also commonly given by British women work- ers ro their children-Ed.

10M.Jean Dollfus, [a facrory owner] known for his philan- thropy, has saved thirteen out of every hundred children from death by allowing their mothers ro remain at home for six weeks after childbirth and paying them the daily equivalent of their wages at the facrory.

It is easy to convince oneself that this decline of the woman worker is also related to the de- cline of motherhood. In speaking of the iso- lated, individual, single worker, I have shown some of the effects of our social immorality which is more prevalent in manufacture than elsewhere.

The conditions of modern society, the exten- sion of the factory system has appreciably al- tered women's fate; her appearance on the battlefield of industry has brought an anxious, I will say almost maternal, concern from the leg- islators for the safeguarding of the moral dig- nity of man, the principle of the family, and even of civilization itself. By an inexplicable aberration, the day when manufacture tore away the women from the household, French law allowed it to develop at full speed with an unbridled freedom and made the daughter of the people the target of greed freed from all so- cial obligations.

The reports of all the observers and writers are unanimous on this sad question ....

Men who are distressed by the dissolution of family bonds have made fruitless attempts, in the manufacturing towns like Lyon and Lille, to urge the [male] weavers to transport their looms to the countryside; they obstinately refuse to do so; even when they have the cer- tainty of receiving the same amount of payment due to the reduction of their expenses. It is worth taking the trouble to figure out the mo- tives for their preference for the city. In the countryside, they say, one is often compelled to enter into formal marriages in which the hus- band is responsible for his wife and child, while the moral laxity of the city allows for more free- dom ....

In effect, debauchery gives privileges to men which are rightfully revolting to morality. In- vestigations have shown that in prosperous in- dustries which offer a daily wage of seven francs {to the male workers] one finds ten free unions for everyone legal marriage, and that earnings are consumed by personal and harmful expendi- tures. This explains why our workers are ex-

Womenand Industrialization 279

pelled from European workshops when they also attempt to convert other people to our an- archic principles and lack of moral doctrine.

This license, in corrupting the man, devas- tates motherhood and childhood: young girls who are weakened at age ten and mothers at rif- teen, having neither maternal feelings nor obligations, abandon their infants or deliver their young girls themselves to the promiscuity of the factory owners and male employees.

One speaks a great deal of the vices of the people, but it is easy to convince oneself that these vices are borrowed from the ruling classes; as long as a single industrialist can ex- ploit a single worker in the name of his egoism, and a single woman worker in the name of his passions, the social order will be badly consti- tuted. Our opulent bourgeoisie, unacquainted with industry, offers no more morality than certain leading manufacturers and one knows the habits of our celebrated dandies whose irre- sponsible immorality in bringing immense rav-

. ages to the popular ranks troubles the economic order at the same time as the moral order.

Freedom of trade, then, requires a prelimi- nary uniformity of the European code on a host of industrial questions, such as the rights of the factory owner concerning holidays, child labor in the manufactures, the rights of illegitimate children to financial assistance from their fa- thers, the obligations of the owners towards disabled workers, etc. So far, we have only known how to rupture the ties which bind the economic order to the civil and moral order, and one could attribute the suffering caused by the treaty of commerce at least, in part, to our lack of principles.

When the law prevents the industrialist from committing injustice, it will look after those who accomplish good; it will invite him to combat drunkenness, to promote the econ- omy with savings banks and family values; to cultivate intelligence and reason with schools, courses, lectures, and libraries, ete.

From the investigations and the reports which will certify the progress achieved, this individual

280 Chapter 8 The French Revolution, Industrialization, and Midcentury Working-Class Movements

[the industrialist}, however humble he may be, with his life in his hands, will demand the recog- nition due to him forhis morally uplifting activ-

ities. These immediate means of eliminating our social antagonisms supposes, above all, moral solidarity and association.

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS

l. What isJulie-VictoireDaubie's analysisof the living and working conditionsofwomenin the silk industry in Lyon?How has industrializationtransformedmotherhoodand familyrelations?

2. What sourcesdoesDaubie draw on forher study? 3. What reformsand changesin societalattitudes doesshepropose?

~~

WOMEN AND MID CENTURY MOVEMENTS FOR DEMOCRATIC AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS In midcentury Europe, workers' movements combined the struggle for democra- tic forms ofgovernment with demands for social and economic rights for workers. In England, the Chartist movement demanded male working-class suffrage as a means of influencing legislation beneficial to workers; in the Revolution of 1848in France, the most radical workers called for the creation of a Social Republic, and in Germany in 1848 and 1849, workers participated in the revolutionary move- ment for national unification and the creation of a constitutional form of govern- ment. Women's participation in these movements included demands for their economic and political rights, such as the right to work and vote.

101. Chartist Women Demand Equal Political Rights The Chartist movement was inspired by the Reform Bill of 1832 which ex- panded suffrage for men with property but excluded working men and all women. Deriving its name from the Magna Carter, or Great Charter, the six- point People's Charter of 1838 called for universal male suffrage, annual elec- tions, secret ballots, equal electoral districts, the elimination of property qualifications for office, and payment for members of Parliament. Women and men in the manufacturing districts were also mobilized by the Chartist move- ment's opposition to the Poor Law of 1834. Embodying Malthusian ideas, the law required whole families to enter workhouses on a sex-segregated basis in order to receive assistance. Chartist women participated in demonstrations, meetings, and strikes, and organized female associations which advocated pas- sage of the Charter. Some also called for equal political rights, as in this 1839 ad- dress which was published in the Northern Star, a Chartist newspaper.

From the Northern Star, February 1839.

Women and Midcentury Movements for Democratic and Economic Rights 291

Louise Otto (1819-1895) was a founder of the women's movement that emerged in midnineteenth-century Germany. A writer and an editor, her first novel, Schloss und Fabrik (1846; Castle and Factory) depicted the class tensions caused by indus- trialization and captured the economic unrest of the 1840s.During the Revolution of 1848-1849, Otto gained public attention with a letter on women's work ad- dressed to the Minister of Interior of Saxony and a recently convened Saxon Com- mission on Workers. The letter, reproduced here, was published in several journals and newspapers. Otto also founded and edited the Frauen-Zeitung (Women's Newspaper) which appeared from 1849 to 1852 and aimed to represent the interests of women workers. In 1865, she established and served as president of the General German Women's Organization, the first national women's organization in Ger- many. In the next year, Otto wrote Das Recht der Frauen aufErwerb (1866; The Right of Women to Employment) and initiated the organization's journal Neue Bahnen (New Paths) which she co-edited for nearly thirty years. In 1894, Otto organized the Alliance of German Women's Organizations which brought together various middle-class women's organizations formed since 1865.

Contributed by Bonnie Anderson and translated by Bonnie Anderson and Renate Bridenthal. Used by permission.

104. Louise Otto 'Women's Right to Work

Gentlemen:l

My taking the liberty of addressing you with no signature other than the simple one of "a girl" can only be excused by the unlimited con- fidence I place in the Ministry of the Interior, by the importance I attach to the Workers' Committee, and by the interest I have long taken in the fate of the working classes.

Gentlemen, do not misunderstand me: I do not write this Address despite the fact that I am a weak woman, but because I am one. Indeed I take it as my holiest duty to lend my voice to the cause of those who do not have the courage to represent themselves. You will not be able to accuse me of arrogance, because the history of all times, and especially of today, has taught us that those who forget to think about their rights will also be forgotten. This is why I will

'The letter was entitled "A Girl's Address to the Most Honorable Minister, Mr. Oberlander, and the Committee on Workers Convened by Him, and to All Workers."

exort you about my poor sisters, about poor working women.

Gentlemen, when you deliberate about the great problem of our time-the organization of labor-you should not forget that it is not enough to organize work for men, you must also organize it for women.

Everyone knows that in the working classes women as well as men must labor for their daily bread. I will not dwell on how but since women are admitted only to a few kinds ofwork, compe- tition within these has so depressed wages that when you look at the whole picture, the fate of working women is much more miserable than that ofworking men. You all know that this is so and if you do not yet know it, form committees which must corroborate it for you. Now, one can say, that when men are better paid in the future than now, they can better provide for their wives, who can devote themselves to the care of their children, instead of working for others. For one thing, I fear that the fate of the working classes cannot be improved to this degree right away

292 Chapter 8 The French Revolution, Industrialization, and Midcentury Working-Class Movements

and, after all, there would still remain the multitudes of widows and orphans, and full- grown girls in general, even excepting wives and mothers. Furthermore, it would mean that half of mankind pronounces for minors and children and makes complete and total dependents of the others. It means this, to put it bluntly, to en- courage immorality and crime. A girl who can barely earn a living will direct all her energies to getting a husband, through whom she will be re- lieved of these concerns. If she is already cor- rupted, she will give herself to the first man who comes along so that he will marry her-if not for herself, then for her children. Or, if she has not sunk so low, she will marry the first comer, no matter whether she loves him and suits him or not. In any case, the number of unhappy, im- moral, heedless marriages, of unhappy children, and of the unhappiest proletarian families is con- siderably increased precisely because the lot of the unmarried working women is such a sad one. I have not yet called attention here to the worst fate of the female proletariat-it is prostitution. I blush to use this word before you-but I blush even more over the social circumstances of a state which is able to give to thousands of its poor daughters no other bread than the poison of a hideous occupation, based on the depravity of men!

Gentlemen-in the name of morality, in the name of the fatherland, in the name of human- ity, I charge you: Do not forget women in the orga- nization of labor!

You, most honorable Minister, will not forget them, since your heart has room for all the suf- ferings of the people. You thought about the poor hungry lacemakers, about the general state of distress, even then, when you prophesied: that if things continue in this way, there will be only a hundred rich people and millions of poor. In the chamber of depuries, your word faded away without a trace and only outside did it fall into the grateful hearts of the poor and their friends. You will also take the fate of the poor working women into your (and so the best) hands and will not be angry at me for rais- ing my weak voice on behalf of a part of the

people who do not yet dare to plead for their interests themselves.

And you, gentlemen, who are appointed to the investigation and regulation of workers' conditions, think also about the weaker sex, which since it cannot help itself has a sacred right to claim this help from you, the stronger sex. Also do not forget the women who work in factories, the women day laborers, the knitters, the seamstresses, etc. Ask them about their wages, the pressure under which they languish and you will discover how necessary your help is here.

And also for you, gentlemen, and for you also, the entire great multitude of working men, have I written this address. As the stronger sex, you also have the obligation to help the weaker! Are these not your wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters, whose interests must be watched over as much as your own. Instead of that, it was possible for the male factory workers in Berlin, desirous of bettering their lot, to de- mand that all women be fired from the fac- tory!-This is an abuse of the right of the stronger! Workers! I am convinced that the majority of you are filled with a different spirit! No, do not yet concede that misery will force your daughters to sell their only possession, their honor, to lecherous rich men, since their labor is disdained! Do not allow this shame to accompany poverty anymore! Think not only how you can get a livelihood for yourselves, but also for your wives and daughters!

I am certain that my poor sisters share my feelings, but their days pass in such need and dullness that they do not dare to express pub- licly their pleas and wishes the way men do. So I have dared to do this alone for them through the only means available to me, to at least at- tempt an effect on the general good-through the press. May I have succeeded in directing your attention to the condition of working women and the need for its improvement!

Louise Otto Leipziger Arbeiter-Zeitung May, 201848

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