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The Domestic Image and Factory Culture: The Cotton District in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Carol E. Morgan
Affiliation:
University of Northern Iowa

Abstract

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Type
Identity Formation and Class
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1996

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References

NOTES

I wish to acknowledge the support of a Summer Fellowship from the University of Northern Iowa which enabled me to carry out part of the research for this paper.

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3. Ibid., 47.

4. Ibid., 48; Hall, “Tale of Samuel and Jemima.” According to Wally Seccombe, “The male breadwinner version of a living wage became a powerful ideological fixture in the labour movement for over a century, despite the fact that it was never realizable by the labouring poor.” Seccombe, , “Patriarchy Stabilized: The Construction of the Male Breadwinner Wage Norm in Nineteenth-Century Britain,” Social History 11 (01 1986):55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Robert Gray has noted that, especially in the context of the short-time agitations, women were addressed as mothers and bearers of domestic virtue while men were constructed as citizens and free laborers. “Factory Legislation,” 60–64.

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16. Louise Tilly argues that, in approaching women's history, we need a theory that respects human agency rather than a focus on text which serves to downplay it. Gender, Women's History, and Social History,” Social Science History 13 (Winter 1989):452–53.Google Scholar It is with this need in mind that I am approaching the issue of the domestic image of women.

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34. The Political Pulpit, no. 2: “A Sermon by the Rev. J. R. Stephens, Delivered at Hyde, in Lancashire, on Sunday Evening, February 17th, 1839,” 11.

35. The Political Pulpit, no. 1: “A Sermon by the Rev. J. R. Stephens, Delivered at Staley-Bridge, on Sunday Evening, February 10th, 1839,” 5.

36. The Political Pulpit, no. 2, 12; The Political Pulpit, no. 9, “A Sermon by the Rev. J. R. Stephens, Delivered at Ashton-under-Lyne, on Sunday Afternoon, May 26th, 1839,” 72.

37. The Political Pulpit, no. 3: “A Sermon by the Rev. J. R. Stephens, Delivered at Staley-Bridge, on Sunday Evening, February 24th, 1839,” 21.

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57. Michael Savage, “Women and Work,” 206–7; Farnie, English Cotton Industry, 296–97.

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59. Ibid., 177.

60. The Trial of Feargus O'Connor and 58 Others (London, 1843), 249.Google Scholar

61. Ibid., 249–53.

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65. Ibid. Instead, it appears that, with the continued expansion of weaving, men in Preston initially “seemed content to allow women into the weaving Sector.” Savage, Michael, The Dynamics of Working-Class Politics: The Labour Movement in Preston, 1880–1940 (Cambridge, 1987), 68.Google Scholar Male overlookers, who played the key role in the organization of the labor market, deliberately sought to hire women to limit competition. Yet the system of gender hierarchy was particularly pronounced here due to the overlookers' power extending beyond the usual supervisory role to control of the labor market. At the same time, comparatively few men were employed alongside women weavers and weaving, to a large extent, thus came to be considered “women's work.” Under these circumstances, the notion of a “natural” division of labor remained unchallenged, and appeals to domesticity for women could be readily invoked. Consequently, when spinning began to decline at the turn of the century, leading to unemployment among men, the male secretary of the weavers' union was able, despite a tradition of widespread women's employment, to appeal to the notion of separate spheres. He denounced employers who engaged “women in the sheds, leaving the husband to see to the house or walk the street,” contradicting accepted norms. Savage, Dynamics, 68, 79, 152.

66. Farnie, , English Cotton Industry, 296–97.Google Scholar

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72. Ten Hours' Advocate (September 1846-February 1847).

73. Gray, “Factory Legislation,” 65.

74. Women participated extensively in this strike. Jenkins, Mick, The General Strike of 1842 (London, 1980), 64, 214.Google Scholar

75. Trial of Feargus O'Connor, 253.

76. British Parliamentary Papers, 1849, xxii, Report of Leonard Homer for the Half-year Ended 31 October 1848.

77. Ibid., 31–33, 35.

78. Apparently many married women were employed at this particular mill; similar Comments were made by other operatives at other mills. Ibid., 28. 31.

79. Ibid., 29, 32–33.

80. Ibid., 57–58.

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84. British Parliamentary Papers, Report of Leonard Homer, 1849, xxii, 3–8; Driver, Tory Radical, 480.

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99. British Parliamentary Papers, 1849, xxii, Report of Leonard Homer, 33, 49.

100. Ibid., 28, 31–32, 72.

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102. Jane Lewis, “Working-Class Wife,” 108.

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109. Roberts, A Woman's Place, 137; Benenson, “The ‘Family Wage,’” 79. Diana Gittins has argued that, particularly among cotton weavers, household management and paid labor were not mutually exclusive roles. Further, a sharing of work experience was reflected in shared values and household responsibilities among husbands and wives; Fair Sex, 104–130.

110. London, Library of Political and Economic Science, London School of Economics, Webb Trade Union Collection, section A, vol. 47, 48. Sarah Dickenson figures prominently in Liddington, Jill and Norris, Jill, One Hand Tied Behind Us: The Rise of the Women's Suffrage Movement (London, 1978).Google Scholar

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