Women -- Employment -- Great Britain; Women labor union members -- Great Britain; Working class women -- Great Britain
wife are earning, their means are good relatively to their standard; and
again as the young people grow up, the combined income of the family may
be even ample. The young children whose mother is absent at work are
looked after in the day-time by a grandmother, or by a neighbour who is
paid for the work. It was stated, half-ironically, perhaps, before the
Labour Commission that there was a "standard list for this sort of
business." Opinions differ as to whether the children are or are not
neglected under this system. There is, however, evidence to show that many
Lancashire women, at least among those who are relatively well paid, are
good mothers and good housekeepers even though they work their ten hours a
day. They go to work because their standard of life is high, and they
cannot live up to it without working.
_The Industrial Revolution in Non-Textile Trades._--This subject, though
sociologically of great interest, cannot here be treated at length; it
must suffice to indicate a few points in regard to women, trusting that
some later writer will some day paint for England a finished picture on
the scale of Miss Butler's fine study "Women and the Trades," of
Pittsburgh, U.S.A.
The factory system has now invaded one manufacturing industry after
another, and the use of power and division of work in numerous processes
have opened a considerable amount of employment to women. There have been
two lines of development; on the one hand, occupations have been opened
for women in trades with which previously they had nothing, or very little
to do; on the other hand, industries hitherto almost entirely in the hands
of women, and carried on chiefly in homes or small workrooms or shops,
such as dressmaking, the making of underclothing, laundry work and so on,
have been to some extent changed in character, and have in part become
factory industries of the modern type.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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