ABSTRACT
The mill women thus described by Mrs. Gaskell have come to stand, in popular opinion, for the Victorian working woman. Appropriated by the social scientist as they have been, studied minutely from a variety of sources, and presented to the public with a wealth of detail in numerous important books dealing with the industrial development of nineteenthcentury England, they have received the notoriety achieved by no other class of women workers. Such emphasis they have entirely merited. They have had an indissoluble connection with some of the most momentous changes to be recorded in history, and are without doubt the most important Victorian working women. But, because their condition has been investigated with so much care, it seems feasible in this study to make no more than a brief summary of the available economic materials and concentrate upon the neglected literary aspect of the woman textile worker.
