Women at Work. the Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826{u2013}1860

Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860

Until the nineteenth century, women were largely confined to work in the home. But in the years between 1820 and 1860 the rise of the cotton textile industry in New England radically altered women's working and living patterns. Thousands of single, young women left the homes of their parents to work in the growing mill towns and to live together in the company boardinghouses. This was the first generation of American women to face the demands of industrial capitalism.

Women at Workdetails the lives of this first generation in Lowell, Massachusetts -- America's leading factory town in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. The mill experience bridged the gap between rural and urban life, as Yankee women from the countryside brought to the mill towns the rich kinship and friendship networks indigenous to preindustrial America. Thomas Dublin shows how these rural values, transplanted to Lowell's factories and boardinghouses, contributed to the emergence of a close-knit community of women workers.

Recounting the birth of the American textile industry and the rise of Lowell, Dublin analyzes the social relations in the early mills, the boardinghouse community, the strikes of the 1830s, and the Ten Hour Movement organized for the reduction of hours in the 1840s. He then describes the influx of Irish and other immigrant workers who displaced the Yankee women workers and brought about the transformation of the community. The immigrant workers lived in private tenements rather than in the company boardinghouses, a family labor system replaced one consisting primarily of young, single women, and more stringent working conditions and wage cuts undermined the previousstandards. The unprecedented first period of the American women's labor movement had passed.

Women at Work tells of the first generation of women to enter industrial employment by recounting experiences of workers in the cotton mills of mid-19th century Lowell, Massachusetts.

Until the nineteenth century, women were largely confined to work in the home. But in the years between 1820 and 1860 the rise of the cotton textile industry in New England radically altered women's working and living patterns. Thousands of single, young women left the homes of their parents to work in the growing mill towns and to live together in the company boardinghouses. This was the first generation of American women to face the demands of industrial capitalism.

Women at Workdetails the lives of this first generation in Lowell, Massachusetts -- America's leading factory town in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. The mill experience bridged the gap between rural and urban life, as Yankee women from the countryside brought to the mill towns the rich kinship and friendship networks indigenous to preindustrial America. Thomas Dublin shows how these rural values, transplanted to Lowell's factories and boardinghouses, contributed to the emergence of a close-knit community of women workers.

Recounting the birth of the American textile industry and the rise of Lowell, Dublin analyzes the social relations in the early mills, the boardinghouse community, the strikes of the 1830s, and the Ten Hour Movement organized for the reduction of hours in the 1840s. He then describes the influx of Irish and other immigrant workers who displaced the Yankee women workers and brought about the transformation of the community. The immigrant workers lived in private tenements rather than in the company boardinghouses, a family labor system replaced one consisting primarily of young, single women, and more stringent working conditions and wage cuts undermined the previousstandards. The unprecedented first period of the American women's labor movement had passed.

Frontmatter (page N/A) Frontmatter (page ix) Illustrations (page xv) Preface (page xvii) Acknowledgments (page xxxv) Chapter One Women Workers and Early Industrialization (page 1) Chapter Two The Early Textile Industry and the Rise of Lowell (page 14) Chapter Three The Lowell Work Force, 1836, and the Social Origins of Women Workers (page 23) Chapter Four The Social Relations of Production in the Early Mills (page 58) Chapter Five The Boardinghouse (page 75) Chapter Six The Early Strikes: The 1830's (page 86) Chapter Seven The Ten Hour Movement: the 1840's (page 108) Chapter Eight (page 132) Chapter Nine Immigrants in the Mills, 1850-1860 (page 145) Chapter Ten housing and Families of Women Opeatives (page 165) Chapter Eleven Careers of Operatives 1836-1860 (page 183) Chapter Twelve The Operatives Response (page 198) Appendixes (page 209) Abbreviations (page 251) Notes (page 253) Selected Bibliography (page 293) Index (page 309) Prize-winning social origins study about how the employment of women in the textile mills (1826-1860) enabled women to enjoy social and independence unknown to their mothers' generation. Dublin explores, in carefully researched detail, the lives and experiences of the first generation of American women to face the demands of industrial capitalism, and describes and traces the strong community awareness of these women from Lowell, relating it to labor protest movements of the 1830s and '40s In this prize-winning study, Thomas Dublin explores, in carefully researched detail, the lives and experiences of the first generation of American women to face the demands of industrial capitalism. Dublin describes and traces the strong community awareness of these women from Lowell and relates it to labor protest movements of the 1830s and '40s. Studies the transformation of work and community in Lowell, Massachusetts from 1826-1860. Looks at the early textile industry, the strikes, immigrants in the mills, and the housing and families of the women workers WOMEN have always worked, but until the past century their work has been confined almost entirely to the domestic setting, and it has been for the most part unpaid labor.