“What is woman but an enemy of friendship, an unavoidable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable affliction, a constantly flowing source of tears, a wicked work of nature covered with a shining varnish?”— Saint Chrysostom. “And wo in winter tyme with wakying a-nyghtes, To rise to the ruel to rock the cradel, Both to kard and to kembe, to clouten and to wasche, To rubbe and to rely, russhes to pilie That reuthe is to rede othere in ryme shewe The wo of these women that

It may be well to give a brief explanation of the scheme of the present work. Part I. was complete in its present form, save for unimportant corrections, before the summer of 1914. The outbreak of war necessitated some delay in publication, after which it became evident that some modification in the scheme and plan of the book must be made. The question was, whether to revise the work already accomplished so as to bring it more in tune with the tremendous events that are fresh in all our minds.

Little attention has been given until quite recent times to the position of the woman worker and the special problems concerning her industrial and commercial employment. The historical material relating to the share of women in industry is extremely scanty. Women in mediaeval times must have done a very large share of the total work necessary for carrying on social existence, but the work of men was more specialised, more differentiated, more picturesque. It thus claimed and obtained a larger s

SKETCH OF THE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN IN ENGLAND BEFORE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. The traces of women in economic and industrial history are unmistakable, but the record of their work is so scattered, casual, and incoherent that it is difficult to derive a connected story therefrom. We know enough, however, to disprove the old misconception that women’s industrial work is a phenomenon beginning with the nineteenth century. It seems indeed not unlikely that textile industry, perhaps also agriculture

WOMEN AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. The cotton trade is the industry most conspicuously identified with the series of complex changes that we call the Industrial Revolution. Its history before that period is comparatively unimportant; we have therefore left it over from the previous chapter to the present. Cottons are mentioned as a Manchester trade in the sixteenth century, but it seems probable that these were really a coarse kind of woollen stuff, and not cotton at all. Cotton wool had, it i

STATISTICS OF THE LIFE AND EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN. No very detailed or elaborate statistics will be here employed, the aim of this chapter being merely to draw attention to certain broad facts or relations disclosed by the Census and the Registrar-General’s Report. The Surplus of Women. —It is a well-known fact that in this country women exceed men in numbers. The surplus increased slightly but steadily from 1851 to 1901, and remained almost stationary from 1901 to 1911. In 1901 and 1911 there were

WOMEN IN TRADE UNIONS. Early Efforts at Organisation. —It is probably not worth while to spend a great deal of time in the endeavour to decide what part women played in the earlier developments of trade unionism, very little information being so far obtainable. It seems, however, not unlikely that some of the loose organisations of frame-work knitters, woollen weavers, etc., that existed in the eighteenth century and later, may have included women members, as the Manchester Small-Ware Weavers ce

WOMEN IN UNIONS ( continued ). Women’s Unions in Germany. [37] —In Germany the obstacles have been far greater than in England. The relative prevalence of “Hausindustrie” and the greater poverty stood in the way of women’s organisation, and until a few years back the law did not allow women to join political societies. Women were not, it is true, prohibited from joining Trade Unions, but the line between political and trade societies is not in practice always easy to draw, and full membership of

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I. [41] Changes effected by the Industrial Revolution. —We have seen that the industrial employment of women developed partly out of their miscellaneous activities as members of a family, partly out of their employment as domestic servants, partly out of the work given out from well-to-do households to their poorer neighbours. Weaving and spinning, the most typical and general employments of women, were carried on by them as assistants to the husband or father, or

WOMEN’S WAGES IN THE WAGE CENSUS OF 1906. By J. J. Mallon. Until a few years ago no statistics comprehensive in character relating to women’s wages were available. In 1906, however, the Board of Trade took “census” of the wages and hours of labour of the persons employed in all the industries of the country, and the result has been a series of volumes which, though becoming rapidly out-of-date, nevertheless throw much light on the general level of wages in various trades and occupations. The enq

THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN The Shock of War. —The great European War broke out in the summer of 1914. The shock was felt at once by trade and industry. July ended in scenes of widespread trouble and dismay. The Stock Exchange closed, and the August Bank Holiday was prolonged for nearly a week. Many failures occurred, and there was at first a general lack of confidence and credit. Energetic measures were promptly taken by the Government to restore a sense of security, and u

DOCUMENTS AND EXTRACTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE POSITION OF WOMEN DURING THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. Thoughts on the Use of Machines in the Cotton Manufacture. By a Friend of the Poor. Manchester Reference Library, 677, 1, B. 12. (Barnes, 1780.) “What a prodigious difference have our machines made in the gain of the females of the family! Formerly the chief support of a poor family arose from the loom. The wife could get comparatively but little on her single spindle. But for some years a good spinner

Resolutions submitted by the National Federation of Women Workers to the Trade Union Congress, 1915. “( a ) That all women who register for war service should immediately join the appropriate trade union in the trade for which they are volunteering service, and that membership of such organisation should be the condition of their employment for war service, and that those trade unions which exclude women be urged to admit women as members. “( b ) That where a woman is doing the same work as a ma

CHAPTER I. Introductory. Pearson, Karl. Woman as Witch, in the Chances of Death, vol. ii.; and Sex Relations in Germany, in the Ethic of Freethought, p. 402. Mason, Otis. In the American Antiquarian, Jan. 1889, p. 6. Ellis, Havelock. Man and Woman. Fourth Edition. Introduction and chap. xiv. Reclus, E. Primitive Folk, pp. 57-8. Contemporary Science Series. 1891. Frazer, J. G. The Magic Art, ii. 204. Man, E. H. Journal of the Anthropological Institute. August 1893. Servants in Husbandry. Thorold,