ABSTRACT

By 1900 more than a million women were working in American factories. What had seemed a striking innovation in the textile mills of the 1820s had by the turn of the century become a familiar feature of the industrial scene. Some women tended huge mechanical looms in textile mills; others worked at sewing machines in crowded sweatshops or found jobs in shoe factories, cigar factories, or canneries. All faced the common hardships of industrial labor during this period: long hours, low pay, dirty and unsafe working conditions, and periodic spells of unemployment. This era did see the gradual establishment of laws limiting working hours for women, but enforcement was weak, and large segments of the female workforce remained unprotected.