ABSTRACT
Industrial homeworking in the communities illuminates the importance of understanding market exchange relations in the context of local community and household relations. The local business elite supported home-working by recruiting workers: men for the warehouse jobs and women for the home contractor positions. Household dynamics, including the sexual division of labor, also contributed to the regulation of homeworking and to the assignment of such work to women. The organization and process of production evolve in the context of the household, shaping the labor as it is incorporated into other paid and unpaid work activities. The structure of the work was somewhat flexible, but most women workers found themselves becoming more flexible in response to the multiple demands of home, work, and family needs. The Middle Company (TMC), a Fortune 500 manufacturer and subcontractor of General Motors (GM) was ready to step into this rural context.
