ABSTRACT
The history of industrial homework provides a rich arena to explores the social construction of motherhood. Homework employers drew upon women's position as mothers to justify low pay, long hours, and irregular work; conditions that trade unionists and reformers labeled exploitative and sought to prohibit. Certainly the changing political economy of white-collar work found a flexible labor force in white women removed by housing patterns from employment choices and tied down with mother-care of children. The debate over homework regulation in the direct mail industry overlapped with US entry into Korea, a timing that partially explains the resulting discourse. Because the union initiating restriction, the UOPWA, was 'Communist-influenced', business supporters of homework linked patriotism, motherhood, and freedom to work at home. Only the Congress of American Women recognized the need for an alliance between home working women and those who labored in shops and offices. It alone challenged the false division between mother and worker.
