ABSTRACT
This chapter builds upon the existing account of the family as a work site, focusing upon the changing work of women. It examines the diverse activities of women in the late nineteenth century, reflected in the distinction between ‘ladies’ and ‘women’. The chapter considers how the dynamics of captalist expansion and state intervention recast the household economy, categories of masculinity and femininity, and the ideology of family. Women’s work became more privatised and less acknowledged. At the same time, experts increasingly supervised women’s work through domestic science classes in the schools, baby clinics in the suburbs, advice columns in women’s magazines, and medical consultations in private and public practices. As divisions sharpened within working-class households, divisions narrowed between women of different classes. More women were doing more housework at the expense of other diverse activities. From the 1890s the distinction between ladies and women began to fade, while the cross-class concept of ‘housewife’ gained currency.
