Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• ORTHMANN, ROSEMARY

Titel

WOMEN, WORK, AND FAMILY IN BERLIN AT THE HEIGHT OF INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1874-1913 (GERMANY)

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

1987

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This study attempts to place female workers in the context of their families without losing sight of their individual life courses. It addresses several subjects that have received little attention in the scholarly literature on women's work during industrialization. These subjects include the impact of migration on size and composition of the female work force, reciprocity in the economic relationship between workers and their families, and the effect of socioeconomic status on whether or not women worked. It also evaluates in a new geographical area several issues that scholars have raised, such as the impact of industrialization on women and their work, the role of society in defining what work women might perform, and the budgetary importance of that work to women's families. This study employs a broad definition of working women to include not only those who worked away from home but also those who worked in the home for remuneration. It concentrates primarily on industrial labor and subletting. On the basis of census enumerations and investigations into the conditions of women's work in factories, workshops, and the home, it examines different types of jobs women performed over the course of their lifetimes. Using several sets of household budgets and a unique set of budgets for unmarried female factory workers, the study also pays special attention to the dispensation of women's earnings and the importance of those earnings for sustaining women as well as their families. According to the study, motivations and consequences of women's work reflected a complex set of considerations in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Berlin. At the individual level, it hinged upon a woman's age and marital status as well as on her family commitments. At the social level, it depended on the status of her family, that is, on the occupation and income of her husband or father. It also depended on prevailing notions as to the suitability of women's work. At the economic level, it reflected Berlin's economic structure and the demand for female labor. It also rested on the supply of women available to work in Berlin, especially on migration patterns that affected the female labor pool.