I can manage my own business affairs : female industrial workers in Halifax at the turn of the twentieth century

Abstract

Marking the period of time between childhood and marriage, a significant proportion of young women engaged themselves in factory work and at-home work for local industries as the twentieth century turned in Halifax. They clustered in certain industries, but their concentrated groupings did not signify unity and solidarity. The structure of the workplaces and the edicts of late Victorian society combined to discourage women from attempting to make themselves a great unity. Theirs is not a history of radical activism. While structural forces influenced the way women shaped their lives, so too did cultural forces. Clearly the women reaffirmed for one another their roles in the domestic sphere. Further, the edicts of late Victorian society confirmed, indeed prescribed, women's domestic role. Caught in the spirit of Victorian conservatism, social reforms advocated the maintenance of women's influence and participation within the domestic sphere. The very culture of Victorian society set young industrial women on a path to domesticity upon marriage. As a result of these factors, women who were engaged in industry saw themselves merely as temporary workers. To amass and struggle for change, women resorted to individual assertions of autonomy and personal expressions of struggle. The potential for radical change which accompanied women's increasing participation in the public sphere was, in the end, not realized.