ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some of the main conclusions from author's thesis. The author choses for several reasons to focus on the textile industry, with supplementary studies of the boot and shoe industry. The author presents a short outline of the industrialization process, focuses on its development in and around Odense, and discusses the composition of the workforce in relation to mechanization. Following this, the author discusses the establishment and institutionalization of a gendered division of labour around the turn of the century. The cottage industry on Sletten was based on weaving of linsey-wolsey, a product in which the warp consists of linen, the weft of wool. There were three woollen mills in Odense both in 1872 and in 1890, although not the same three mills. One part of the traditional explanation of women’s position in industry was that men were replaced by women as the jobs required less skill after the mechanization of the textile industry.
