ABSTRACT
Feminist historians have argued that women’s role in the formal economy was of major importance in enhancing women’s power. J. Liddington and Jill Norris emphasised the role played by Lancashire working women in the women’s suffrage campaign of the Edwardian period. The chapter argues that in the case of the Lancashire cotton industry there were also real variations in the experience of women between places. In order to understand the social implications of women’s employment it is necessary to complement our understanding of the work process and the family with an analysis of the labour market. Some patterns had important implications for the growth of trade unionism in the cotton industry. Most cotton trade unions fiercely opposed the widespread employment of women and pledged themselves to support the reintroduction of male labour after hostilities ended. In the spinning industry, the pre-war sexual division of labour was restored after 1918, and there were few attempts thereafter to employ women as piecers.
