ABSTRACT
By the early twentieth century, changes in the economies of England and France resulted in changed occupational opportunities for women. In both countries the textile industry declined in importance while other manufacturing enterprises grew. Heavy industry, which included mining, metallurgy, and engineering, became more prominent, as did the electrical and chemical industries. Larger factories, organized to produce goods for a mass market, replaced the older and smaller textile mills as the predominant form of industrial organization. The manufacture of machines to supply the new factories was an increasingly large endeavor. Entrepreneurs invested their capital less in textiles and more and more in the production of machines and machine parts, of rubber and chemicals, of bicycles and eventually automobiles. The transition from textiles to heavy industry meant fewer jobs in the manufacturing sector for women. For while textile production had recruited women and children, heavy industry offered employment at relatively high wages primarily for men. Early increases in the scale of production had drawn women into factories. Further increases in scale and the manufacture of new kinds of products pushed women out of the manufacturing sector. Of course, textile factories had not accounted in the past for the majority of female workers. They had been employed in more "traditional" forms of employment such as domestic service, garment making, and, in France, agriculture. These areas, too, declined in importance in the French and British economies.
