History of the American Working Woman Essay Example
History of the American Working Woman Essay Example

History of the American Working Woman Essay Example

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This essay details the history of working women in American history. From colonial times through today's business woman. Goes over the challenges and breakthroughs in roughly each era with references.

]| It was not long ago when women were looked upon as slaves to the hard- working man. In today's society women now are more respected and are acceptable for many jobs equivalent to men.Yet, long before our time during the creation of this great nation, women were second class citizens, thought to only hold reign over a household not a workplace. During World War II, women were given an opportunity to prove their worth out of necessity for workers, then expected to return to the household chores and structure, this taste of freedom sparked their own revolution of equality in this ever changing new na

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tion of America.

Women then took their stand and many acts were passed in their favor.In this essay I shall be discussing the many different requirements women went through from colonial times, during World War II and through to today. The ships that brought over the very first settlers of Jamestown and Plymouth also brought a surplus of social ideology. Women’s place was submissive and obedient. “Tradition provided her with secondary status in the family, where she served her husband, cared for her children, and worked in the household. ” (Woloch, p.16) The seventeenth-century housewife, in her confined living space, was expected to commit to “housewifery” as the only job she was capable of in her daily life.This meant the lifelong production of food, clothing, and household items; the newer the region, the more rugged the job. It was shocking fo

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Mary Rowlandson, while in captivity, to witness Native American women in charge of the business of trading as well as farming and housing demands.

For most of the eighteenth century, women lagged behind, locked in a traditional mold. “Whatever her locale or station in society, the contours of a women’s life were defined by her dependent role in the family. ” (Woloch, p. 66) One promising movement for women in the workplace came about when the Ladies Magazine was created in 1828.

Edited by woman, this magazine pushed for a new generation of independent women to stand up for their rights in family and public circles. Many upper class women began social clubs to help out those in need. This was one of the first time in history that women could flex their intellectual muscles in the world and a huge stepping stone into the workforce. When Alexander Hamilton wrote his Report on Manufacturers in 1791, seeking ways to develop industry in the United States, he identified women and children as a source of cheap labor.Later, in the 1820s, the textile mills of New England, most notably those in Lowell, Massachusetts, hired young women from the surrounding farms as workers, viewing them as more tractable than men and more willing to earn less, since presumably they would stop working once they married.

To make matters worse for female laborers, workingmen often saw them as threats to their status, especially as new machines permitted less skilled operatives to perform tasks formerly assigned to craftsmen.Thus, it is not surprising that as men attempted to unionize in order to combat declining pay and status, their leaders often ignored female workers.

Women, however, were eager to assume roles in the fledgling labor movement. As early as the 1820s, female workers in Lowell engaged in "turnouts" or work stoppages when employers sought to cut workers' paychecks.

In 1844, women from the mills formed themselves into the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA).At a time when females seldom spoke in public, the women of Lowell, led by the intrepid Sarah Bagley, testified fearlessly before the Massachusetts legislature that new requirements forcing them to tend more machines at accelerated rates were endangering their physical well-being. Their petition drive compelled the legislature to investigate for the first time the question of worker health and safety. When their petition was denied, the LFLRA forged an alliance with the New England Workingmen's Association, which published The Voice of Industry.Through this medium, the two unions declared that "in view of our condition--the evils already come upon us, by toiling from 13 to 14 hours per day, confined in unhealthy apartments, exposed to the poisonous contagion of air, vegetable, animal and mineral properties, debarred from proper Physical Exercise, Mental Discipline and Mastication cruelly limited, and thereby hastening us on through pain, disease and privation, to a premature grave, pray the legislature to institute a ten hour working day in all of the factories of the state. (Lowell, 2007)

After the Civil War, which saw the deaths of more than 600,000 men and the maiming of countless others, it became necessary for women to enter the work force in increasing numbers. Some journalists and labor leaders called for the creation of a Women's Bureau to oversee conditions of female labor. But that agency, later formed as part

of the federal Department of Labor, did not actually materialize until 1920. In the meantime, even African-American women in the South had begun to unionize.

Newly freed black women, working as laundresses in Jackson, Mississippi, formed a union and struck for higher wages as early as 1866. Married or single, these women participated in the paid labor force to a far greater extent than other American women, largely because racial discrimination limited economic opportunities for black men. The Knights of Labor, established in 1869, was the first large-scale national labor federation in the United States. In 1881, its members voted to admit women. The organization grew significantly in the mid-1880s after a series of successful strikes.

Stressing equal pay regardless of sex or color, the Knights relied heavily on the organizing efforts of women such as the beloved widow, Mary Harris Jones, better known as "Mother Jones. " By the 1890s, the Knights of Labor, weakened by lost strikes, poor investments, and battles with the newly formed American Federation of Labor (AFL), no longer carried much weight in the labor movement. Its early demise, however, could not detract from the unprecedented role played by the Knights of Labor in the promotion of women in the work force.The most successful union at the turn of the twentieth century was the AFL. Unfortunately for women workers, Samuel Gompers, its first president, shared society's belief that a woman's place was in the home. It was the union's stand that "it is wrong to permit any of the female sex of our country to be forced to work, as we believe that men should be provided with a fair wage in

order to keep his female relatives from going to work.

" If women engaged in paid work, it was felt, respect for them would diminish and they would "bring forth weak children who are not educated to become strong and good citizens. One of the ways that working women sought to overcome male indifference or hostility was to join forces with upper-class women in the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL), an organization founded in the United States in 1903. Initially, the WTUL hoped to persuade male-dominated unions to take women workers more seriously. Female sewers in the shirtwaist factories, dismissed in 1909 for union activity, were joined on the picket line by their upper-class allies. When both groups were hauled before judges, public sympathy turned a localized strike into New York City's "Uprising of the 20,000.

The strike began after a meeting held at New York's Cooper Union in November, 1909, at which Gompers cautioned workers against a general strike. But Clara Lemlich, a young immigrant woman, stood and recited her hardships as a working girl, galvanizing the audience with her call for action. “With extraordinary simplicity and eloquence she will tell before any kind of audience, without any false shame and without self-glorification, the conditions of her work, her wages, and the pinching poverty of her home and the homes of her comrades.Then she withdraws into the background to undertake quietly the danger and humiliation of picket duty. ” (Woloch, p. 202) Unfortunately, although women provided the backbone of the two-month-long strike, labor leaders settled it without due attention to worker safety.

Shirtwaist workers were still crowded into lofts where the few existing fire escapes either were

inaccessible or stopped several stories above the pavement. On March 25, 1911, as Frances Perkins--then a young New York City researcher and social reformer, but later Franklin D.Roosevelt's secretary of labor--was visiting a friend, she suddenly heard the clanging of fire engines close-by. Rushing out to the street, Perkins saw the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company engulfed in flames.

She watched with horror as workers, mostly young women, leaped to their deaths. The tragedy, which claimed 146 lives, touched the conscience of Americans and led to the passage of more stringent laws governing working conditions.During FDR's New Deal, which sought to revive the depression-riddled economy through a series of innovative regulations, Congress passed the Wagner Act of 1935, which created the National Labor Relations Board and required private employers to deal with unions and not discriminate against union members. Guaranteeing workers the right to collective bargaining, it also oversaw union elections and the settlement of labor disputes. As the unemployment rate during the Great Depression exceeded 25 percent of the work force, many Americans came to believe that only men were entitled to jobs.Although many wives sought to help with the family finances by seeking work when their husbands were laid off, some public and private employers refused to hire married women.

Because sex segregation in the workplace was so prevalent and unemployment was so much greater in higher-paying heavy industries, these women often had to rely on traditionally female jobs that were scorned by men. The profile of the female wage earner was changing as the percentage of married women in the work force, increasing since the 1920s, actually rose during the thirties by

more than 25 percent.The participation by the United States in World War II accelerated this change. Six million new women workers entered the labor force and took heavy industry jobs formerly available only to men. A popular song, "Rosie the Riveter," and a Norman Rockwell painting of Rosie that was commissioned for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1943 were invaluable symbols to weapons and munitions manufacturers. The war's demand, the war had made the proposition to the women to do the man's work (Cook, pg.35). Women were encouraged to take these jobs for the first time in history.To some it was a shock but to many it was a divine privilege. By 1942 a poll showed that only 13% of Americans opposed women in the workforce (Cook, pg.36). Many of them also became war nurses and helped many of the men recover. It would seem that women's interests in occupational equality were directly linked to the nation's state of distress. Many women were exceptionally well at making bombs and took the place of men.

During the war women received many different opportunity and advancement in their lives. Even though there were many laws prohibiting women from working they still came through for our country (Campbell, 1987).For once women were looked at as producers and not reproducers. “However, the prosperity of the first post– World War II decades was also based in part on women’s household labor and on a set of rules that supported such work. The old rules shaping the domestic realm, as well as those of the workplace, have collapsed. The conditions of women’s work in the home have also grown

increasingly insecure.

Marriages are easily dissolved, and the arrangements that once committed employers and the state as well as fathers to some support for family maintenance have vanished. (Thistle, S. ) After the war the men had returned home and back steps began to take place with the women. In 1945, 3/4 of the women polled by the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor wished to continue working which showed their interests in the skills they possessed. During this point much frustration ran through these women for the men had created "homemaker" for the description of a women's job and life. Women continued working during the postwar and grew stronger.

The veterans of the war were not so opposed but more rejecting to the fact of women taking their places.Knowing that the women would help the war's progress greatly many issues were discussed before allowing them to work. The government wanted power towards them, to have possession of influence that the women undergo. Giving them the freedom of choice or the act of selection when postwar would take place. Even though women now have the act of selection (choice) and somewhat of power to my view the government is till grateful for giving them that privilege.

The years following World War II were unique in the history of American women.It was realized by many that women could be producers as well as reproducers and looked at in a different way. The government used women in their survival during the war. Women were encouraged to take wartime jobs only, and then return to their homes to make room for the returning veterans. Women of those years have affected

the women of today greatly.

They have given the women of today hope and acceptation of their right to decide how they would like to live. When the war ended, many women had to give up their high paying jobs to make room for returning veterans.However, even though the entertainment and advertising industries portrayed the American wife and mother as totally devoted to domesticity, increasing numbers of women poured into the work force, taking positions in office work, retail sales, teaching, nursing, and other so-called feminine occupations. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 led to the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Sex discrimination cases were low on the EEOC agenda until prodding by groups such as the National Organization for Women brought them to the fore.By 1970, when the courts had invalidated protective legislation, women found themselves eligible for many jobs formerly closed to them. “The standard story of how sexual harassment emerged into public consciousness rarely mentions the contributions of women of color until 1991, when Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. At the beginning of the Second Wave of the women's movement in the 1960s, radical feminists focused on women's sexuality and men's sexual objectification and exploitation of women.Using the aphorism "the personal is political," feminists formed consciousness-raising groups and held speakouts to discuss controversial issues relating to women's sexuality that had previously been considered private, such as abortion, rape, and domestic violence. ” (Baker, C.) The activism of American women and working-class women continues to strengthen the fight against sexual harassment in the United States. Hill’s testimony is a step forward for the

equality women see today in the workplace. The "feminine mystique" that American culture promotes is entirely dependent upon its ideas, beliefs, and needs of the time.American culture has always tended to influence women into doing what the day and age required.

After men went to war there was a gap in the work force that needed to be filled. During World War II women were the most available to join the work force. Due to the discouragement to raise families during the Great Depression and the fact that most men of age had entered the war, many women were left without families to look after and men to take to take care of them. "Most women toiled at unskilled jobs; most were young, single, and without children" (Campbell).

This lack of family and funds left women with no other place to go besides the factories. Women's need for work was nursed along by the media as well as the public. "A rapidly expanding war economy absorbed most of the reserve labor force," yet it still was not enough, the economy demanded a larger work force. This demand worked in cooperation with the availability of the women of the time. "'Commando Mary' and 'Rosie the Riveter' became symbols of women who heeded their country's call" (Campbell). There were many enticements luring women to join the work force.

These enticements included higher war wages, more available time and opportunity to work, and wartime restrictions on leisure activities. "Despite the general expectation that women would return to their home after the war, female laborers did not simply drop their wrenches and pick up frying pans" (Greenwald). After the war many women

continued to work outside the home primarily to help support their families. After the war 28% of the labor force was female compared to the 24% prior to the war. When the war was over nearly one million women were laid off and another 2.5 million voluntarily left. These female losses in the work force were offset by the gain of 2. 75 million women into the work force. "When women who had been laid off managed to return to work, they often lost their seniority and had to accept reduced pay in lower job categories" (Greenwald). Due to the severe segregation by gender, the postwar economic life for women was appalling.

Postwar American life became organized around marriage and family. As men came back from the war they merged with the peacetime economy, taking jobs away from women and sending them back to the home.With the demise of Mary and Rosie came new role models whose ideas and beliefs were focused around the home and not the workplace. This was due to the fact that during the war many writers were female and supported involvement in the labor force and after the war many of these women's jobs were taken by men with the desire of a "cozy domestic life" (Greenwald). "Almost overnight, television became the preeminent mass medium, carrying imaging--feminine or otherwise-of American culture into the home" (Greenwald). Television shows displayed the personification of what a husband thought a wife should be.

An example of this was the show "Ozzie and Harriet" which showed a warm-hearted, attractive, submissive woman who was only competent within the confines of her own home. Children who grew up seeing

this behavior in their own home as well as on television tended to use that lifestyle as a model. Without any external reinforcement, and only by repetition the children learned that men and women had different roles in society. It was this learned behavior which carried the new "feminine mystique" from generation to generation. "As many have said before "history repeats itself" with WWII as well as WWI, the return of peace meant that "women faced layoffs, renewed wage discrimination, and segregation into female-only jobs" (Greenwald). The media of the 50's and 60's continued to portray women as housewives and mothers.

The media has always influenced people's ideas and values, whether it was a wartime poster of Rosie or a magazine article depicting sweet, submissive housewives, or a TV show with June Cleaver taking care of the boys and her home. Many challenges face women in the workforce today.First of all they have to make a choice whether to be a stay at home mom or have a career while taking care of the household. Most households these days, just like the Great Depression era, require two incomes to stay in the customary style of life families these days are used to.

Unfortunately many families succumb to divorce and so many children are raised by hard working single moms with a lot of burden on their shoulders. Although the computer industry evolved in an era that also gave rise to the women’s movement, women seem to have fallen behind in the world of information technology.The gender distinction of men as inventors and women as users of things that men invent is still a commonly accepted notion in

our society. Regardless of their chosen track, Women today face obstacles in almost any career and the sex-role socialization drilled into our mindset at an early age creates a barrier that must be overcome throughout a woman’s life. Our parents, the media and friends play a huge factor in a growing child’s self-esteem.

These factors can create or breakdown obstacles for women today. But women’s equality in education has given them an opportunity to succeed in any career path.Where a century ago women were often excluded from the full exercise of those civil rights which many men have enjoyed, and most women never attained the status of full legal adults, now equality is conceivable. Men across the globe have had to come to terms with women exercising their recently acquired rights in the workplace, in politics and at home. Yet nowhere has actual equality been achieved. The respective roles of men and women are still undergoing profound change, in the process transforming the nature of the family, society, culture and politics along with economics and the world f work.

References

  1. Woloch, N. (2011). Women and the American Experience (5 ed. ).
  2. New York City: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. "An Operative" (1845). "Some of the Beauties of our Factory System – Otherwise, Lowell Slavery". In Factory Tracts.
  3. Factory Life As It Is, Number One. Lowell. Online at the Center for History and New Media. Retrieved on August 27, 2007. Thistle, Susan.
  4. From Marriage to the Market : The Transformation of Women's Lives and Work . Ewing, NJ, USA: University of California Press, 2006. p5. http://site.
  5. brary. com/lib/ashford/Doc? id=10129012&ppg=20 Baker, Carrie N. “Race, Class, and Sexual Harassment in the 1970s.

” Feminist Studies, Spring 2004, Vol. 30 Issue 1; EBSCOhost: Ashford Univ.

  • Library Cook, Bernard A. Women and war: a historical encyclopedia from antiquity to the present (2006) D'Ann Campbell. "Women in Uniform: The World War II Experiment," Military Affairs, Vol. 51, No. 3, Fiftieth Year—1937-1987 (Jul.
  • , 1987) Maurine W. Greenwald. Women, War, and Work: The Impact of World War I on Women Workers in the United States (1990)
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