Labor And Women
...Pilgrims arrived
at Plymouth Rock in 1620, they had with them three craftsmen. Unions of carpenters, cabinet
makers and cobblers formed along the Atlantic seaboard. Workers played a bigt role in
the struggle for independence in America. Their efforts in demanding higher pay and shorter
working hours by going on strike during the 18th century led to the beginning of the organized
labor movement.
From the late colonial period through the America Revolution, a woman's work was usually
centered on the home. In Early America, the work of a wife was often along side of her husband,
running the household, farm or plantation. Cooking, making garments, spinning yarn, sewing
and mending clothes took much of her time. After the Revolution to the early 19th century, the
education of a child was put on the mother. Widows and the wives of men off fighting in the war
or on business, were often left to tend to large farms or plantations. Other women worked as
servants or slaves, helping out with household chores of other wives or substituting for the wife
if there was not one in the family.
In the 1840's and 50's, as the Industrial Revolution and factory labor began in the US, more
women went to work outside the home. By 1840 ten percent of women held jobs outside the
home and ten years later this number had risen to fifteen percent. Factory owners hired women
and children where they could because they would accept lower wages than men. Women were
preferred in jobs like sewing because they had experience in what was called "woman's work."
Sewing had to be done by hand because the sewing machine had not been introduced to factories
until the 1830's.
Between 1880 and 1930 an increase of industrialization, immigration and urbanization fell upon
the US. The populations of industrial cities...
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