Women’s Work and the Industrial Revolution

Abstract

The Industrial Revolution, traditionally associated with the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, has long been seen as the great historical turning point in the nature of women’s working lives. For with it came a reorganisation of the production process which separated the household from the workplace. A debate has raged among both feminists and historians since the early years of this century over the positive and negative impact of industrialisation on women’s workforce participation and status. Optimists have argued that industrialisation and the factory brought gains in employment and higher wages which improved women’s status within the family. Pessimists have argued that women’s jobs were narrowed to less skilled and less valued work, and that women’s social position was degraded by the decline of the household economy.