Guest post from Janet Few.

Women often get overlooked by history. In a patriarchal society, it is the men who spring most readily from the historical record. Men were the rulers, the decision makers, the breadwinners, the heads of the household. Men were more likely to make wills, sign leases, join trade guides, enlist in the armed services, vote and be prominent in local affairs. It is the men whose stories are told. In the background, women continued to perform many tasks that were vital to the family unit and the wider community.

Most households relied on women to support their husbands in their daily work, without remuneration; be that helping on the family farm, mending fishing nets, or selling their husband’s wares. When money was tight, the women in the family needed to do what they could to make a financial contribution. Particularly if there were young children in the household, it was not always practical to work outside the home, so many women looked for employment that did not detract from their duties as a wife and mother. Rural women might sell butter and eggs, or vegetables and herbs that they had grown. Other women took in laundry, minded children or opened their home to lodgers.

Across the country, people, predominantly women, worked from home in what are collectively known as home industries, or cottage industries. Almost all of this work was done on a piecework basis, where payment was directly related to output. Usually, the raw materials would be delivered each week, the previous week’s work would be collected and payment made accordingly, although some women would walk to collect their raw materials and pay. The more skilled workers would command higher rates and it was usual for the children to help with aspects of the task, so that more could be produced and therefore earnings would be boosted. In this way, in some cases, a women would bring in more money in a week than her labouring husband, a fact that often caused resentment. This may be why women in some of these industries were labelled as being immoral, or lazy and were accused of neglecting their families and being deficient in housewifely skills.

Employment opportunities for women were limited by society’s attitudes. Firstly, a woman’s place was regarded as being in the home; all working women might be accused of not paying sufficient attention to their husband, their children and their household duties. In addition, there was a firmly held belief that education for women was harmful and that there were physiological and emotional differences between the sexes that rendered women unfit for study, or for many roles. This made it more difficult for women to enter the professions.

Domestic service was the most common form of female employment until the 1920s. In 1851, ten per cent of the British workforce were servants, the vast majority of whom were female. The 1891 census showed that 1,748,954 women in the United Kingdom were in service; more than half of these were between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. Throughout the Victorian period, roughly a third of all women in this age group were domestic servants. Numbers of servants declined sharply after the first world war, when attitudes to female employment changed and labour-saving devices began to take the place of human endeavour. Being a servant not only removed young girls from their families, so that they were not a drain on the domestic economy but it was also considered to be an excellent way of gaining the skills that they would need when they became housewives. It was therefore the obvious employment route for young, single girls. As a servant in a higher status household, a women or girl would have had a specific role in the servant hierarchy. The tasks of the scullery maid, were very different to those of the ladies’ maid, the nursery maid or the housekeeper.

The Industrial Revolution had a huge impact on paid work for women. As processes became increasingly mechanised and production on a larger scale was favoured for economic reasons, many women went to work in factories and mills. The heaviest work was reserved for men but many of the tasks required nimble fingers that could be provided by women and girls. Once again, an added advantage of employing women was the reduced rates of pay. Despite legislation to limit working hours and improve conditions, there was little regard for health and safety and working conditions were frequently dangerous and injurious to health.

Although nineteenth century factory acts did limit working hours for women in some industries and the 1842 Mines Act outlawed the underground employment of women, most moves to protect the employment rights of women are very recent. The Langham Place Group, formed in 1857, campaigned for women’s rights. Apart from being active in the fight for women’s suffrage, they advocated for better education and working conditions for women. The first equal pay resolution was passed at the Trade Union Congress in 1888 but it was 1970 before The Equal Pay Act guaranteed the equal treatment of women regarding pay and conditions of employment. Entry into certain occupations was also made more difficult for women. In theory, the 1919 The Sex Disqualification Removal Act gave women access to trades and professions but in practice, women were still at a disadvantage in many careers, particularly married women, who, until the mid-twentieth century, had to resign on marriage if they were employed as teachers or civil servants, for example.

Women’s work encompassed far more than paid employment. All women, whether they were receiving wages or not, were expected to perform the many tasks that were necessary to sustain the household. Cooking, cleaning and childcare were key responsibilities that, until recently, were regarded as ‘women’s work’. In addition, married women were expected to be unpaid launderesses, nurses, dressmakers, dairymaids and gardeners, amongst many other tasks. All this, whilst conforming to societal expectations of feminine behaviour and moral standards. A woman’s work truly was never done.

A History of Women’s Work is available to preorder here.