1. Women’s work in England and Wales 1600-1914
Dr Frances Richardson
womens-work-england-and-wales

2. Course aims and objectives
AIM - to study the changing nature of women’s work from 1600 to 1914 in a variety of sectors and regions, to understand the social and economic factors that influenced women’s economic roles.
OBJECTIVES
To gain a knowledge and understanding of the changing nature of women’s work in the period
To examine the social and economic factors that influenced women’s economic roles.
To be able to evaluate recent scholarly debates.

3. Overview Overview, the changing nature of women’s work
The seventeenth-century household economy
Women in agriculture
Pre-industrial manufacturing
The Industrial Revolution – textiles
Other industries
Domestic servants
Sweated trades
Women entrepreneurs
White collar work and the ‘new woman’

4. Resources
Borrowing books – Continuing Education Library, Rewley House:
SOLO to search for books
Online resources – articles and Bodleian e-books via computers in Student Resource Room or Conted Library,
for OU e-Journals
Course website: work-never-done-womens-work-england-and-wales

5. Assessment
Portfolio of 3 to 5 short pieces of work total up to 1500 words, based on class preparation questions OR
One essay 1500 word essay – some suggested topics or agree topic with Frances. Feedback can be sought on essay outline before end of term
Deadline for submitting written work 7 April
Mark and feedback by 21st April

6. Overview, the changing nature of women’s work
Types of work
Women’s wages
Influences on women’s work and wages
Key phases

7. Types of work Paid Unpaid Production for sale
Production for home consumption

8. Wages – unskilled women & men
Source: Humphries & Weisdorf, 2015

9. The gender wage gap
Source: Humphries & Weisdorf 2015

10. Influences Ideology and legal rights Women’s domestic responsibilities
Division of labour and specialization
Trade and economic growth
Industrialization and the growth of capitalism
Population growth
Education

11. Ideology and legal Women defined in relation to fathers and husbands
Married women lacked property rights till 1870
17c - Work as social obligation of wives and daughters
- Statute of Artificers and Elizabethan Poor Laws
18c - Praise of industriousness
- Men ‘rational’, women ‘traditional’ - professionalization
19c - Woman’s place in the home, moral concerns
- Legal restrictions – 1842 Mines Act
Late-19c - marriage bars

12. Women’s domestic responsibilities
David Cox, Cottage interior, Trossavon near Bettws y coed (1844-7), Birmingham Museums Trust
‘Though husbandry seemeth to bring in the gains, yet huswifery labours seem equal in pains’ (Thomas Tusser, 1573)
Childcare
Cooking, food preserving
Cleaning
Laundry
Fetching water, fuel
Spinning for home use
Making clothes

13. Division of labour and specialization
Growth of markets for goods and services
Decline of household economy
More work located outside the home
Increased gender segregation
John Cranch, The village baker ( ) Royal Albert Memorial Museum

14. Trade and economic growth
Source: Broadberry et al., 2015

15. Population growth

16. Industrialization and capitalism

17. Education

18. Phases Household economy Proto-industry – industry before the factory
Industrialization, growth of wage labour
Rise of domestic ideology and male breadwinner norm
Increased white collar jobs for women – the ‘New Woman’

19. The male breadwinner and the family wage
Growing separation of work and home
The domestic ideology – A woman’s place is in the home
Home-making more important than wage earning
Victorian moral concerns about women working outdoors or with men
After 1850, increased pressure for men to earn a family wage
Phillip Morris ( ), The Breadwinner, Wolverhampton Art Gallery

20. DISCUSSION
Why might working women have been praised for their industriousness in the 18th century but condemned for working outside the home in the 19th?

21. Prep for week 2
Discussion topic: What role did housewives and/or unmarried female servants play in the seventeenth century?
Reading:
* Alice Clark ‘Working Life of Women in the seventeenth Century’ (1917) (The Internet Library: ) Especially Introductory, pp. 5-12, and Conclusion, pp
* Gervaise Markham, Countrey Contentments, or the English Huswife (1615) (The Digital Library, – dip into this.
Jane Whittle, ‘The house as a place of work in early modern rural England’, Home Cultures (2011), pp (Online in Resources room or Continuing Education Library - OU e-Journals, Home Cultures.) 2 hard copies for loan.
Jane Whittle, ‘Enterprising widows and active wives: Women's unpaid work in the household economy of early modern England’, History of the Family, vol. 19, no. 3, (2014), pp
(Online in Resources room or Continuing Education Library - OU e-Journals, History of the Family). 2 hard copies for loan.
Ann Kussmaul, Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1981) (Continuing Education Library), especially pp hard copied for laon.