Erika
This blog entry examines the inequality difference men and women working in factories and the workhouse. Immigrant women had the challenges of learning a new language, adjusting to society culture, and providing for their children. Entering the workforce made women become distant from friends and relatives. The industrial impacted family life and decrease the sizes of families. Fertility began to decline among women but immigration increase to replace the number of workers. Immigrant was cheap labour, so France and England employed immigrant women for clothing manufacturing and food processing. Britain was the largest manufacturing was the woolen industry and there were many cotton mills. Fashion trends were changing drastically in the high social class and this increase the need for workers. White middle class women often stopped working after they were married while immigrant women had continued working after marriage. Employing immigrants replaced the gap between the middle class women not working and the need for production. Middle class women’s husband often could support their family based on his income. Immigrant women were willing to work under dangerous conditions and for low salaries. They had to endure long shifts hours, repetitive work, high risk of contracting disease and illness, and working in insanitary conditions. Countries were able to make a fortune off producing lots of products for cheap labour from trading with other countries. England became more powerful which lead in higher control over the working labour force.
The outbreak of the potato famine was booming era for the Irish immigrating. Irish women immigrated to United States because they outnumbered the population of Irish men. Irish women differ from American women who were domestic and preferred being caretakers. Irish women were more independent and were able to make decisions for themselves. Many Irish women did not compelled to factory work and became school teachers. However most Irish women were Catholic and this compelled them from joining feminist organizations. Poor Irish immigration's were often single because they did not married spontaneously. This increased immigration in United States because there were no family responsibilities. Although their quality of life was lower and they face discriminated within society. United States is willing to employed immigration's that lacked language skills and education qualifications, as long they were willing to work for the demand of labour.
Diner, Hasia R. Erin's Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins Unversity Press, 1983.
Kay, James Phillips. The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester. London, England .
I enjoyed reading your post. I was unaware that women were most affected than men, and how much they outnumbered them. The information you presented was well brought forward and I enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDelete-Amy
This is quite an interesting idea. I knew that life was very difficult for immigrants workers during the industrial revolution, and even today, but I had not heard of the difficulties in such specific terms before. Prior to reading your post, I had not thought or heard about the difference between men and women working in factories during the industrial revolution. I suppose I had just thought that men worked while women stayed at home and took care of the children. Now I see that this is a rather romantic, unrealistic portrayal of what life was really like during the industrial revolution. It is not as if life was easier in the past than it is today.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I liked how you picked a specific nationality to work with, and that you selected the Irish, as I myself am Irish. I have read many books on the potato famine and I know that it was a horrific period in Ireland's history. I mean, obviously it was very difficult for Irish people to immigrate and try to work and find a secure place to live. However, there are so many that were never able to leave Ireland, and their fate was perhaps even worse. They either starved to death, died from exposure because they could not pay rent for shelter, worked until they literally dropped in awful workhouses, or died from one of the many illnesses that were all too common with the malnourishment of all the people. Although immigration at this time was difficult and not all it could or should have been, it was nevertheless an opportunity. An opportunity for change and a brighter future.
-Selina
This is an interesting topic. Like Selina, I hadn't realized that women worked in factories. I wrote my first blog on child labor and I read mentioned women working in factories, but from my understanding it was very rare. Through reading your article and more like it, I see how difficult it was for women. Thanks for writing about this!
ReplyDelete-Morgan (Disabilities)