In addition to the large amount of work that went into raising children, cooking and maintaining a house. Women continued to work on the farm in rural areas. Many women would leave employment after either marriage or the birth of their first child. Work was just too difficult. Small families and paid employment were combined. As a woman’s family grew in size, the change of her being at work rapidly diminished. In families with just one child, over 80% of the mothers worked. About 70% of mothers with two children work. Certainly, over the course of the 19th century women worked for some part of their childhood.

With the coming of factories starting in the 1780s, women increasingly worked in the factories where they (especially at first) offered better wages than the tradition forms of labor.Women and children comprised over 75% of the textile workers in Britain in the late 1830s. They were cheaper–women generally earned only about half the wages of their male counterparts even though in many instances they were doing the same job. Factory owners also preferred women and children because they were smaller and could use certain machinery that men were too large for. 16% of the labor force was under 15 years of age and all worked long hours, were often beaten for minor infractions and remained economically and socially vulnerable. Pregnant women worked up until delivery and returned within a day or two. They often had to bring their babies to work and the babies were given opium so they would sleep and not disrupt the work day. Woman and children also found a lot of employment in coal mines because they were likewise cheaper and smaller. They would have a light on their hat and -they were chained, harnessed, they would crawl into dark areas and crawl out with their load behind them. However, this created a debate over if women should be sharing the same dimly lit and unsupervised space with only partially clothed men. Still, despite the hardships of factory work and mine work many women preferred it to domestic servant work because while servants they were isolated from the rest of society and also there were instances of abuse.

Females continued to work in traditional settings-the most numerous occupation remained servant. In the first half of the 19th century there were still more domestic servants than factory workers yet the class for itself really develops among factory workers Parents sought out this employment for their female children to learn needed skills in running their own household and as an occupation that they cold later return to. The life of a servant varied from being the only worker in a house to one of many on a large staff. Domestic servants cost almost nothing and were a marker of class (the larger the staff, the higher the class). The idea of a differential and respective servant was part of British life. In 1900, domestic service was the largest single occupation in Britain, with 1.5 million servants. In 1911, 800,000 families employed at least one servant, 20% only reported having more than three but some rich families having staff over over 200. Among others in the working class, domestic servants were attacked for supporting a hated system of class exploitation. For the same reason (plus their overall lack of sources and political activism) such groups were largely ignored by historians. Even below the stairs, a hierarchy existed among servants from head butler on down, reflecting responsibilities and wage.

Home for middle class continued to show off new consumables whose market continued to expand with the speed of the Industrial Revolution ; however upper class continued to use labor not technology–simply why invest in hot water when employ 2-3 girls to carry the bath water as required? Also they felt that too much newness was vulgar and only added technology such as gas lamps to the servants hall as it enabled enable the staff to work later.

Many servants came from the lowest rungs of the working class, often from the orphanage or workhouse (for more detail on this see the next chapter), with a history of being poorly fed and between the ages of 10-13. The day for servants began at 6 am and ended at 10 pm with such varied shoes as clearing out the fireplaces several times a day, emptying chamber pots, making beds, polishing and dusting. The basic rule was simply-to be seen as little as possible and never heard and the occupations varied from entry level to governess.

There was a need for domestic servants throughout European empires as well. In order to further recreate life in Britain, for example, female domestic servants received subsidized voyages to settler colonies such as Canada. Many could then look forward to marriage and some degree of class mobility. With the change of technology following WWI and increasingly labor expenses (including having to pay more taxes) served to reduce the number of servants needed.

Perhaps the second most common female occupation, depending on the count, was prostitution, an occupation that existed prior to, during and after the Industrial Revolution. In Paris alone, estimates of prostitutes ranged from 20,000 to 100,000 and around 50,000 in London in 1790. Prostitution was often a fluid category with women moving in and out of the occupation as their finances changed with many briefly entering the profession to pay bills. Most historians agreeing that poor wages and poverty was the largest driving force for women to become prostitutes.

With low wages and long periods of high unemployment rates, men were increasingly unable to afford to marry despite new freedoms for dating and choosing one’s own partner in the urbanizing urban environment. The idea that the married couple would keep a home of their own kept the age of marriage relatively high with men marrying at the age of 27 in 1800 Britain and women at 26, over the next fifty years the number will fall to 25 and 23.The rise of large cities allowed for more people to come in contact with each other. The general poverty of the era pushed many women into prostitution. The average prostitution was between 18-22, but may started earlier, and already sexual experienced. Many were orphans or came from poor families. Many still worked at a factory and worked as a prostitute for additional money. Others had illegitimate children with limited their employment prospects. Additionally, sexual harassment was common. Female servants were targeted by the males of the house with the females blamed for an immoral contact. Working alongside of men led to more sexual harassment (including demands for sex and rape).

Furthering a need for prostitution, was that an ideal woman was supposed to be sexless and having complete control of their sexual desires and only having sex for procreation purposes (see women’s rights in the next chapter).

Many prostitutes welcomed the social freedom (including the ability to enter bars and taverns, they enjoyed, developed their own social networks, developed informal self-help organizations (including bailing each other out) and caring for each other when sick.

One woman said as much: “she had got tired of service, wanted to see life and be independent; & so she had become a prostitute … She … enjoyed it very much, thought it might raise her & perhaps be profitable.” After three years, she had saved up enough to become the landlady of a coffee-house.

Figure 6: 19th Century Prostitute

Over the course of the 19th century, regulating prostitutes became a increasing concern of the various national governments. The 1839 Vagrancy Act in Britain outlawed loitering for the purposes of prostitution, the increasingly police forces (see the next chapter) targeted prostitutes. Government worked to target the morals of the poor as well. Just still subjected to violence, exploitation and stigmas. Different states began to crack down the the profession of the course of the 19th century, subjecting women to increasing prison-like asylums and hospitals (with the goal of treating venereal diseases).  Josephine Butler’s mission was to wipe out prostitution off the face of the earth, or at least of the face of Great Britain, and so she founded the Social Purity Alliance in 1873, which required young men to abstain from all sexual activity. Butler and her suppers relied on moral outrage to focus public opinion on their campaigns. To this end, she exploited two sensational developments: the so-called ‘white slave trade’ or supposed international trafficking in women and the phenomenon of child prostitution.

Figure 7: Child Prostitute (Berlin Police Archives)

Other women took in laundry which could be done in the early morning or at night. Other women continued to run small-scale businesses, often making and then selling goods or helping to run their husbands ship. Women also continued to work in the house as spinners and weavers.

Women increasingly worked in jobs that required an education-in education at local schools or in the “informal” medical care as midwives, inform nursing.

Women remained in many of the same jobs and the changes of them working still remained.The wages remained less than that of men (between 30-50% less) and women’s jobs generally required the least amount of skill. Women needed to submit to male authority in the workplace and at home while still fulfilling many of their traditional duties. The place that women worked changed for factory workers, but more many life remained the same as before the Industrial Revolution.