Eleanor Gordon
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198201434
- eISBN:
- 9780191674884
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201434.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Social History
This is a study of working women in Scotland in the period 1850–1914. In a scholarly analysis, based on a wide range of contemporary sources, the book uncovers the patterns of women's employment, ...
More
This is a study of working women in Scotland in the period 1850–1914. In a scholarly analysis, based on a wide range of contemporary sources, the book uncovers the patterns of women's employment, their involvement in and relationship to trade unionism, and the forms of their workplace resistance and struggles. Focusing particularly on women working in Dundee's jute industry, the study integrates labour history and the history of gender. It is a thorough account, which challenges many assumptions about the organizational apathy of women workers and about the inevitable division between workplace and domestic ideologies. It makes a contribution to current historiographical debates over the sexual division of labour, working-class consciousness, and domestic ideologies, and to the history of women in Scotland.Less
This is a study of working women in Scotland in the period 1850–1914. In a scholarly analysis, based on a wide range of contemporary sources, the book uncovers the patterns of women's employment, their involvement in and relationship to trade unionism, and the forms of their workplace resistance and struggles. Focusing particularly on women working in Dundee's jute industry, the study integrates labour history and the history of gender. It is a thorough account, which challenges many assumptions about the organizational apathy of women workers and about the inevitable division between workplace and domestic ideologies. It makes a contribution to current historiographical debates over the sexual division of labour, working-class consciousness, and domestic ideologies, and to the history of women in Scotland.
Eleanor Gordon
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198201434
- eISBN:
- 9780191674884
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201434.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Social History
This chapter, through a detailed analysis of Dundee women jute workers, presents the ways in which women were controlled and the particular circumstances and ways in which they resisted this control ...
More
This chapter, through a detailed analysis of Dundee women jute workers, presents the ways in which women were controlled and the particular circumstances and ways in which they resisted this control in the workplace. Women workers in Dundee formed over 43% of the total labour force. The lack of assertiveness among the women workers of the Dundee jute factories is often explained by reference to the more passive nature of women and their lack of interest in matters unrelated to the domestic sphere. This analysis, however, fails to take account of the objective constraints on any attempts to improve wages or conditions. The jute trade was also threatened by Indian competition.Less
This chapter, through a detailed analysis of Dundee women jute workers, presents the ways in which women were controlled and the particular circumstances and ways in which they resisted this control in the workplace. Women workers in Dundee formed over 43% of the total labour force. The lack of assertiveness among the women workers of the Dundee jute factories is often explained by reference to the more passive nature of women and their lack of interest in matters unrelated to the domestic sphere. This analysis, however, fails to take account of the objective constraints on any attempts to improve wages or conditions. The jute trade was also threatened by Indian competition.
