Gilded Age Content
Women
Progress
The economic expansion of industrial USA produced urbanisation and diversification. It offered more
opportunities for women outside traditional domestic work, for example:
- The number of domestic women servants fell by half between 1870 and 1900
- Clerical occupations increased ten-fold
- Factory work went from 18% of employed women in 1870 to 22% in 1900
1/3 of Atlanta labour force was women
Women also started unionising to defend their rights. In 1881, the Knights of Labour offered support to
women workers. Women became union organisers and by mid 1880s there were 113 women’s
assemblies and a female membership of 50,000
Lack of Progress
Industrialisation along with the influx of cheap immigrant labour, accentuated inequality and led to harsh
conditions and sexual exploitation.
In industry women were still concentrated in textiles and cotton mills. They were usually confined to
unskilled labour and had few opportunities for advancement
An 1890 Bureau of Labour survey showed that where 800 men and women were surveyed doing the
same work, majority of men received higher wages. The gap was also greater in the southern factories
In sweatshops, low wages, very hazardous and oppressive working conditions were common.
The expansion of cities brought the rapid growth of prostitution as some girls and women preferred the
dangers of sex work to the poor wages and conditions which were alternative in domestic service or
factories and sweatshops
Male trade unions offered limited support for female workers whom they saw as undercutting wages
- In 1882, a strike in a textile mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts, over a 20% pay cut failed after 4
months due to no support from male unions.
Although KOL did promote women membership, its successor as the largest union, the American
Federation of Labour, was much less sympathetic to women in the 1890s and represented skilled
workers, something women couldn’t become.
By 1900, only 2% of all trade unionists were women
Women
Progress
The economic expansion of industrial USA produced urbanisation and diversification. It offered more
opportunities for women outside traditional domestic work, for example:
- The number of domestic women servants fell by half between 1870 and 1900
- Clerical occupations increased ten-fold
- Factory work went from 18% of employed women in 1870 to 22% in 1900
1/3 of Atlanta labour force was women
Women also started unionising to defend their rights. In 1881, the Knights of Labour offered support to
women workers. Women became union organisers and by mid 1880s there were 113 women’s
assemblies and a female membership of 50,000
Lack of Progress
Industrialisation along with the influx of cheap immigrant labour, accentuated inequality and led to harsh
conditions and sexual exploitation.
In industry women were still concentrated in textiles and cotton mills. They were usually confined to
unskilled labour and had few opportunities for advancement
An 1890 Bureau of Labour survey showed that where 800 men and women were surveyed doing the
same work, majority of men received higher wages. The gap was also greater in the southern factories
In sweatshops, low wages, very hazardous and oppressive working conditions were common.
The expansion of cities brought the rapid growth of prostitution as some girls and women preferred the
dangers of sex work to the poor wages and conditions which were alternative in domestic service or
factories and sweatshops
Male trade unions offered limited support for female workers whom they saw as undercutting wages
- In 1882, a strike in a textile mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts, over a 20% pay cut failed after 4
months due to no support from male unions.
Although KOL did promote women membership, its successor as the largest union, the American
Federation of Labour, was much less sympathetic to women in the 1890s and represented skilled
workers, something women couldn’t become.
By 1900, only 2% of all trade unionists were women
