Women and Labor History : The Colonial Period

Women have always done "real work". And, although they have not always worked for wages or organized into unions in great numbers like men, they have played an important role in Labor History, and should not be ignored.

During the colonial period, before large scale industrialization, when most people lived on farms, women worked with their husbands and families in relatively self-sufficient households. There was a sexual division of labor, with women as the "keepers of the home". Men and women both helped to provide for the family, however, women were still subordinate and their economic importance did not translate into political power.

As towns and cities grew, people were no longer in the position to produce everything they needed, and the importance and dependence on the marketplace grew. Advancements in transportation helped the market economy grow by increasing access to markets. Advancements in technology and new ways of organizing production allowed goods to be bought at lower prices than it would cost to produce them at home. Although the basic responsibilities of the homemaker remained the same, the ways that she provided for her family depended increasingly on items that she bought. She still produced items at home, but money became more important.

A class of landless working people began to emerge. Landless sons and immigrants began to fill the cities and got jobs trying to support their families. Working men became the "bread winners". Women continued to cook and sew, much as they did in the colonial times. Ideally, women's place was in the home, while the male head of the family worked outside the home for wages. However, this ideal was far from reality. - Many poor and working class women were forced to survive by whatever means possible. Poor women had to scavenge and steal, take work such as washing, sewing or domestic worker to supplement their husband's income. Middle-class women supplemented their husband's income by being good shoppers - being able to spot a bargain and understand quality of goods - they also did things such as sewing and mending the family's clothes and other household tasks. But, since they did not get paid for these things, they were not considered 'work.'


Wives were discouraged from working outside the home for wages. The ideology of the time dictated that the women's place was inside the home, and she had a God-given duty to take care of her husband and family. Working for wages outside the home disturbed the natural balance and threatened the generally accepted ideals of womanhood as well as men's' own ideals of masculinity and as protector and provider.


Sources:
Boydston, Jeanne. Home & Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. (29)

America's Working Women, Ed. Baxandall, Rosalyn and Linda Gordon. "Shall Married Women Work?". Pg. 94-95.