The Industrial Revolution and Women in Western Europe How did life compare for women of the: - Working class? - Middle class? - Upper class? - Peasantry? Adapted from Nina Wohl, Bronx High School of Science
Questions to consider: What is the role of women in society? How do women fulfill themselves? What is the ideal role for women?
I. Background: The French Revolution Women demanded political rights Any rights achieved were revoked with the Napoleonic Code
Romanticism: art form that developed to contrast w/ harshness of Indus Romanticism: art form that developed to contrast w/ harshness of Indus. Rev., very emotional Liberty Leading People (1830), by Delacroix
Realism: art form that rejected Romanticism & dealt w/problems of Indus. Rev. head on
How did the Industrial Revolution change women’s lives?
Industrial Revolution – Women hauling coal
II. Impact of Industrialization A. Early phase - 1. Working class women: jobs in factories & mines AND caring for home & families 2. Middle class women assisted husbands in new factories & stores, had servant help at home
II. Impact of Industrialization Later phases - 1. Continuity for working class women 2. Middle class women discouraged from working after marriage, focus on the home
How did life change for women who were peasants during the Industrial Revolution?
How did life change for women of the upper class during the Industrial Revolution?
Tea (1872), by James Tissot
Madame Georges Charpentier & Her Children (1878) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
III. The Cult of Domesticity (separate spheres for men & women) Women’s role centered on: child care, housekeeping, supervising servants & providing husbands w/ quiet home where they could escape pressures of business & politics
Mother Feeding Child (1898) by Mary Cassatt
The Princess by Alfred Lord Tennyson Man for the field and woman for the hearth: Man for the sword and for the needle she: Man with the head and woman with the heart: Man to command and woman to obey: All else is confusion.
Men seen as rational, decisive, practical Women seen as loving, nurturing, morally pure, emotional How much has changed since then?
The Modern Women
The Ideal Woman???? Scarlett Johannssen