It is strongly emphasized in a number of the national overviews that there was no such thing as a common textile worker experience even within a single national or regional entity.1 Rather, a diversity of forms of production, workforce composition and economic and commercial environments combined to produce a range of historical experiences across time and space. Some of the most fundamental divisions within and between workforces were related to the use of male and/or female �or�ers, and constructions of gender impacted on, and �ere in��uenced by, the coe�istence of and competition bet�een different forms of production and the industry’s response to the economic imperatives that it faced. Commercialization and industrialization, often associated �ith the gradual gro�th of �age labour and mo�ement of te�tile production a�ay from the household, had significant implications for the gender identity of textile work, but this process was far from being al�ays the same in different countries and regions.