Women at Work, by Ulla Wikander, Professor of Economic History

Contents

Work before and in the initial phase of the period of industrial change | Industrialization and urbanization in the 1880s and onwards | Examples of new and past areas of women’s work, and of the efforts made by some prominent women | A vindication of the rights of workers: trade union activities to achieve reasonable working conditions | Work and the feminine

Women have always been working. This is worth noting, as a starting point. Moreover, as unpaid work must be included, women have been working just as much as men. Women’s work differs widely. It can be divided into three categories, depending on how they have been rewarded. Only one of these categories was rewarded with money. Comparing with other forms of contributions, this is a category that has been significantly and steadily growing through the last two centuries.

The first thing to consider is that women have always been doing domestic work, for the benefit of their families, nearest relatives, and other closely related people. The nature of these housework efforts will be described later on. Women’s reward for this work consisted in a close relationship, a home, food, protection from the environment as well as, perhaps, love and the sense of living a meaningful life. One might say that this form of work has been paid “in kind”; in some cases – and increasingly more often – it has relied on the money-income from other family members.

The third thing to consider is when women, as employees or free professionals, have conducted work for payment. In these cases their work has been valued in money. Society has changed dramatically in the last two centuries, with the effect that more and more of human efforts are paid in money. An increasing number of people depend exclusively on money for their existence. In agrarian society a farm might be almost self-supporting, and, as a consequence, all its workers (family members and others!) had no real need of money other than to a very limited extent. Industrialization changed all this. Increasingly, more was produced in factories and not in families, and more work was paid in money, which became the necessary means to pay for residence, food, and clothes – i.e., all what is necessary for our existence.

Work before and in the initial phase of the period of industrial change

Much of the work conducted within the household, in the family, is nowadays done in quite different places. What was previously characterized as domestic work has been changed in nature, or been subject to rationalization or industrialization. Quite often was it turned into paid work. To understand the radical change of women’s range of abilities (those over which women themselves decided and in which they were instructed, often by family members) occurring in the last two centuries, we must have a retrospective of women’s earlier work. This necessitates a description of the gendered division of labour.

A woman had to secure that nets and trapping devices that men were using, were regularly mended and, when needed, that they were renewed or replaced. Beverages like beer and spirits were to be produced. All food had to be prepared from the bottom up: meat, dairy products, and bread. Furthermore all must be stored in a way that would save it from going rotten or sour, or from being devoured by rats. Soap production and candle-dipping were added later on. Children’s upbringing is not mentioned, though, evidently, this was something that fell on the shoulders of women until the children had reached eight to ten years of age. On top of all these abilities, a noblewoman was supposed to keep accounts to ascertain that the estate’s income (generally consisting in whole foods or raw material) and expenditure were balanced. She would see to that the subordinates delivered what they owed the estate, and that this entered the accounts. Probably she functioned as the personnel manager of the estate. Of course she had many who assisted her; as a supervisor she distributed the work but she was also an expert, planning and in charge for the accomplishment of work.

In the beginning of the 19th century there were noticeable changes, according to Andrée. By then, “the most frequently occurring forms of housework” were fewer in number, though in the 1830s and 1840s they were still numerous. Andrée quotes a Mrs Wettergrund, who claimed that the housework consisted in “cooking, slaughter, baking, brewing /of beer and malt beverages/, dipping / of candles/, laundering, /spinning, weaving, needlework, and knitting. There was always brewing in country homes … and in the larger urban households too. ”Cooking was facilitated in the mid-19th century, when wood stoves replaced cooking done in pots over the hearth’s open fire. The huge work-load might have been the production and stitching of clothes. Wool and flax should become spun threads. At the mid-19th century women sat spinning in the winter to have yarn for their work at the loom in the summer, when clothes as well as bedding were made. One could spin without fairly good lighting, weaving however, required that there would be good lighting.

Manufacture of textiles belongs to the revolution of working conditions that most, and in more than one way, affected the women. Textile factories presented women with opportunities of paid work at workplaces away from home, while, at the same time, diminishing their housework. Additional, out of home production of food was also introduced, enabling the purchase of tinned fish and meat, coffee, already roasted and grinded, ready-prepared spices, and ready mixtures of mustard. With women’s housework growing less important there were more opportunities for income outside the home. The transition from women’s former range of abilities to factory work entailed certain difficulties. Women generally lost their “power” over the new manufacture and - with industrialization - this power was seized by men. The brewing of beer, until then controlled by women, is a drastic example of this. Modern breweries that appeared in the 19th century became the workplaces for men, apart from the sadly monotonous and soiled work of rinsing the beer-bottles and bottling them up. It was not until this point in the long, modernized process that women were allowed to participate. Moreover, they were underpaid.

The working class included several migrants from rural areas, who, living in overcrowded homes, often had to sleep with others in the same room. Some of the women took care of wealthier people’s laundry. Clothes were hung to dry in these women’s rooms and the laundry was ironed before its return at the end of the week. Other women worked in well-off families, as cooks for special occasions or as laundry maids; however, these were not permanent jobs, and the women came when the families sent for them.

Both men and women needed money for their survival in the new society. With or without intermediaries, everyone depended on paid work of some form. Women’s role in the family was frequently debated as one of the things that were later to be judged as negative aspects of this development. Many people viewed women’s growing participation in paid work in or outside the home as a problem. In older statutes and ideologies of feminine domesticity it was claimed that “women’s place was at home”, despite the fact that domestic tasks were not as many as before.

As for women, there were two opposite tendencies in industrialization. On the one hand, the increase of paid work offered subordinated and poorly paid work, but gave them, at the same time, an opportunity to support for themselves. On the other hand, for a few of them, industrialization resulted in access to education, leading, perhaps, to better jobs, even professional ones, side by side with the men. A few women succeeded in challenging the predominant gender system in working life by becoming self-supporting and achieving a state of financial independence.

In this period of transition, when an old production system was slowly being replaced by a new, women sometimes had the opportunity to enter the system and work side by side with the men. They might become elementary school teachers, office workers, telegraphers, dairy workers, engravers, and typesetters at printing offices. Trade and commerce activities became an extensive work area for women. The work as a shop assistant meant long days, often without any chance to sit down, and low wages, and it required proper – that is, expensive – clothing.

Occasionally these tasks were assigned to women at the side of the men’s and with equal wages; it was however not long before the work done by women was paid lower wages than when the same work was carried out by men. This was the case with elementary school teaching and telegraph work. To save tax money by paying a lower salary to women, women rather than men were appointed to many posts by the government. As in a law of nature, women was more low-priced than men, and the law was based on women’s great need of support, their lower education, and that they had to choose between fewer jobs.

Many tasks were changed and divided into working moments that were either easier or more difficult to handle; only the easier working moments were offered to women. A prohibition against night work was introduced, with the result that lucrative night work at printing offices was reserved for the men, as one example. Also work that required more skill but was done by women – for instance, working as a nurse, a midwife, a deaconess, or a so-called factory nurse – rendered considerably lower payment than other caring work, for instance in the physician profession, which was generally done by men. Nurses were not allowed to marry and they lived in the hospital residences, quite often in a room at the ward where they were working. They had to appear in uniform outside as well as within the hospital environment. Doctors were allowed to marry and lived outside the hospital with their families.

To sum up, one could say that, due to the new gendered division of labour and changes in work tasks themselves, women lost much of their former qualification and, on top of that, they were lower paid than the men. There was as well a decrease in the security based on being a part of a family that provided for its members when they fell ill or reached old age. At the turn of the 20th century there were several unmarried women in all social classes. They had to provide for themselves in a harsh world.

Examples of new and past areas of women’s work, and of the efforts made by some prominent women

Women have had their place in theatre and opera since early 19th century; they were, however, not treated as ordinary women. Quite often they were born into families of actors, or they came from a poorer background. These women seldom married but had lasting relationships with men coming from the highest social stratum. It was not uncommon that they were granted an allowance, a home, and money for their garment. Stage clothes, that must be magnificent, was always paid for by the actress herself, at a heavy expense, even to the best in the profession. As an example, Crown Prince Oscar, later Oscar I, had a long relationship with the celebrated actress Emilie Högquist (1812-1846). Högquist’s father, who worked as the head waiter of an aristocratic family, managed to secure a place for her in the Opera ballet school when she was nine. Eventually she became the most admired actress of her times; she was, moreover, a beautiful and graceful person. In her role as the prince’s mistress she lived from 1863 to her death in a flat next to the castle, where she held a salon for Stockholm’s fashionable circles, with the prince as its prominent figure. She gave birth to two of his sons, who were brought up abroad. In the theatre also women from lower background could make a career for themselves and gain access to the highest circles of power. Though coming from a particularly troubled background, Jenny Lind (1820-1887) even gained international fame. Fame took her around the world as an opera singer. Lind could retire at an early age as a wealthy woman. She got married, stopped acting, and had three children. There were also women in charge of travelling companies, alone or together with their husbands. At the end of the 19th century, social norms concerning actresses were altered, becoming more and more bourgeois. Most actresses followed Jenny Lind’s example – once married, they stopped working, devoting themselves to their families. Choosing the acting profession became then a possible option also for daughters and sons of well-off families.

Commercial life, in all its extension, would later provide new income sources for women. When restrictions to promote commerce were removed – at the introduction in 1846 and 1864 of what was labelled as the freedom of trade – women were active as entrepreneurs. Widows and others with special permits had until then worked as hucksters in the streets, selling, for instance, ready food and odd or fancy articles, or trinkets. These women had been granted an exemption regarding this form of small-scale commerce, so that they would not become a financial burden on the poor relief. In early days, there were oarswomen in Stockholm, who rowed passengers between the city’s islands. Before the end of the 19th century it was however far from easy for women to support themselves. Josabeth Sjöberg (1812-1882), the naïve artist of striking interiors of households and widow houses in Stockholm, supported herself as a music teacher, moving from one lodging to the other.

After 1864, women could normally enter new trade sectors; they were soon enough the owners of many a haberdasher’s shop, photo studios, licensed premises, and cafés. Some of them made quite a career for themselves. Sofia Gumaelius (1840-1915) founded Nya Annonsbyrån, which was an early advertising agency. She later expanded her firm into a sales company of printing machines, and this in a time when the printing trade went through an extensive technical change. Her firm was successful. On the personal level, she was committed to the local suffrage society in Stockholm ever since its foundation in 1902. Later, she became a member of Publicistklubben [the Publishers’ Club] and gained the title of “The first lady of the press”.

Also Wilhelmina Skogh (1849-1926) made a career for herself. She came to Stockholm from a relatively modest background and began working as a washer-up at Strömparterren (a café) at the age of fourteen. Advancing in the restaurant business, she eventually took over several railway restaurants in the country, which she extended and modernized. She became then the manager of Grand Hôtel in Stockholm, supervising the construction of the renowned Vinterträdgården where the first Nobel Prize ceremonies were held.

Amanda Christensen (1863-1928) came in the mid 1880s from a plain family in the country to work in Stockholm as a teacher. It was not long before she began manufacturing cravats and bow-ties for gentlemen, with just a few employees, in Gamla Stan (Stockholm’s old town). At her return from a journey to Paris in 1890, she began producing, on a large scale, the most modern of cravats, preferably in silk and with beautiful colours. Several journeys to France and Italy were sources of inspiration for Christensen. She married and had a son. The firm grew quickly, providing work to many seamstresses. Its brand name was Röda Sigillet [the Red Seal]. In 1919, the company was transformed into Amanda Christensen AB, located at Kungsbroplan.

Criticism of what was labelled as the women’s subordination was quite often voiced by brave women in working areas that were formerly restricted to men. There were more and more women working at daily newspapers and in the press. Women had at an early stage reported on social issues. One might say that the social reportage was a genre invented by women. Working at “Aftonbladet” ten years on from 1841, Wendela Hebbe (1808-1899) was the first professional journalist in Sweden. Taking a job in the country as a domestic servant in 1914, one of her later colleagues, Ester Blenda Nordström (1891-1948) renewed the social reportage by writing about her experience. The articles were published as a book, with the title “En piga bland pigor” [‘One domestic servant among many’]. Elin Wägner (1882-1949) appeared as an early “penholder”, who was only slightly younger than, e.g., Hilda Sachs (1857-1935) and Maria Cederschiöld (1856-1935). Hilda Sachs, working as “Dagens Nyheter’s” correspondent in Paris from 1895 to 1898, could report back to Sweden on international women’s congresses, debates in the French National Assembly, and the latest fashion. Later on, she combined journalism with the translation of novels. Maria Cederschiöld began her career as a teacher and became later a translator at “Aftonbladet”. Eventually she became Aftonbladet’s foreign editor.

The work as a factory nurse was one of the least known occupations. It was created under the influence of the United States, where it was defined as “social engineering”. The first office in Sweden for the enlistment of such workers opened at Wettergrens kappfabrik [Wettergren’s coat factory] in Gothenburg, whose work-force consisted of mainly women. To make coats in factories was quite a new phenomenon. The office that recruited these workers had the mission to help seamstresses getting a better life also outside their work - for a low wage! It was not unusual that the office, that is, the factory nurse that the company had paid for, administered the wage for an employee. The money was deposited as in a bank - it took care of fixed expenses like the rent, and reserved some money for recurring expenses. The rest could be handled by the “member”.

Inside the factory, Herta Svensson introduced courses to be held in the dining room. Participants were offered the opportunity to learn German and English, and gain knowledge of the local culture. She was in charge of a co-operative buying group that mediated low-priced food. Participation in the office for enlistment of workers and its different activities was voluntary; many young people refrained from participating in these activities. They chose to handle their wages and organise their lives by themselves.

Similar to other kinds of supportive social work, this engagement had another side to it. Some researchers claim that, to control and govern is a social desire, through which grown-up people are declared legally incompetent. Other researchers assert that this would be a much too one-sided interpretation of such engagements: though implying a certain amount of control, it is still, in providing some opportunities, appreciated for its benefits, so that otherwise exposed women may gain support instead of being forced to solve everything by themselves. Gerda Meyerson (1866-1929) was one of the enthusiasts and activists within these activities for women, and the information of the Tobacco Monopoly comes from her. She writes enthusiastically about these and similar contributions in the book “Arbeterskornas värld: studier och erfarenheter” [‘Female workers’ world: studies and experiences’]. In the book, she gives drastic and compassionate examples of the female workers’ conditions, specifying how these women managed to live on scanty wages by practising strict economy.

There were, moreover, further opportunities to criticize and change things. One branch of democratization with direct connection to women’s work was the socialist women’s movement. Its strongest ally was the socialist movement led by men; later, however, the socialist women’s movement collaborated with the so-called bourgeois women’s movement on issues of special concern to Sweden. Besides, there were severe tensions within the latter movement too. Boundaries between ideologies like socialism and liberalism were in these first decades not as sharp as one might assume today. There were many people who wanted to solve what was called the “social question” by relieving the harsh working conditions. This was linked to the “workers’ issue”, which was the label put on the anxiety at work-places that, for instance, might manifest itself in a strike. From a liberal point of view there was strong demand on labour law regulations, partly coinciding with demands raised by reformist socialists. In the new century after 1900, socialism was gradually divided into more and more fractions, and, further, into some parties that were profiled against each other. Socialism declared right from the start that there should be a “class struggle”. This expression frightened those who did not participate in the movement, and many of them feared that all would end in terror and bloodshed. Within the socialist movement, the expression was subject to continuous interpretations, which ruled out the possibility of agreeing on its meaning. Women were regarded as a part of the working class, though, despite the fact that socialism maintained that all people should be equal, the very same ideology did not consider the unequal treatment of women in the family as problematic. A prevailing idea in socialist discourse was that the so-called women’s question would be solved automatically at the introduction of socialism.

Gender-divided work, in the labour market and at home, remained a problem to loyal socialist women. Parts of this problem were solved by political and trade-union organisation, for instance the attempt of putting the elimination of existing social injustices in the labour market into practice. The fact that this created controversy in socialism has been examined by researchers like Yvonne Hirdman and Ylva Waldemarsson.

In the 1890s SAP did not wish to see political organisations for women but it could accept women’s clubs within the party. Kata Dahlström (1858-1923) was against speaking of women’s “own interest”, as, in her opinion, it was class, not gender, which was the focal issue. Coming from a solid, wealthy background, she entered the SAP in 1893 and became one of the most influential persons in the party. She was the agitator who travelled around the country, speaking for socialism. Others were to address women and their work.

Anna Sterky became the chairwoman of KvF for seven years, which was as long as the union lasted, from 1902 to 1909. The trade union was then dissolved and its members reorganised themselves into trade unions that comprised both men and women. Most of the members had been seamstresses and became members of Skrädderiarbetareförbundet [Tailoring Workers’ Union]. At about the same time, a similar union, though for female workers only, was established in Denmark and remained active for more than a century.

"Morgonbris" was released as a monthly magazine, with an edition of 4,000 to 5,000 copies. After some period of time, the magazine met with financial difficulties. The party contributed with financial support and the publishers arranged bazaars for the purpose of collecting money, and “Morgonbris” survived. It is possible for a reader of “Morgonbris” to follow how the view of women’s paid work and domestic duties changed in the course of time; women as mothers was another topic.

Work and the feminine

Collectively, women have never had the “free choice” either to be provided for at home or to be gainfully employed. More frequently during the last two centuries, they have instead found it necessary, regardless of marital status, to work for a living. Nor could they expect to be supported by a man for as long as a lifetime; this is a well-known fact to widows and divorced women. This is also known to people who choose to live alone or together in economic independence. Considered as a whole group, women are at the same time left to take on dull and low-paid jobs. There were always women’s household duties to be done. The practice in agriculture of dividing labour by gender has been kept alive in the household. There was a transformation of the gendered division of labour which - still - operates to the advantage of men when it comes to the distribution of monetary resources. In cases where the order of gendered division of labour was changed, the reason might have been that women demanded to use their skills and education on equal terms. Gendered division by labour has nevertheless changed, since the employers have chosen women, a less expensive work-force, before men, or it has been assumed that women would contribute with their unique, female perseverance: their “nimble fingers”. Similar changes have occurred in times when workers were needed, and there were more women than men available.

Women have always been working, for money or other rewards. They were always treated with preconceived opinions about the significance of their sex in relation to the work that they were expected to do. Women often had to put up with working conditions that were worse than those of men, not because it is in their nature to be more perseverant or dexterous, but because they, in contrast to men, have fewer alternatives to choose from. Some women have objected to this order of things, others have yielded to the gendered division of labour. There were women who found that unpaid work was their meaning of life - something that frequently results in financial dependence and exposure. However, there were many, many women who succeeded not only in providing for themselves but also for their close relatives. By using both strength and resourcefulness despite resistance, women have managed to conquer new fields of work. In our time, there are many who achieve a greater degree of autonomy than previous generations of women.

It is in fact not possible to discuss women’s positions in working life without placing these in relation to those of men. As for most European women, a majority of European men’s life conditions have improved in the last two centuries. The improvement of women’s conditions of work, however, was not as consistent as men’s. The acquired rights of women are, above all, political, but there are social rights too. Equality in working life has developed during the 20th century but is far from fully achieved. The lingering inequality in society comes mainly from the labour market and its division into “female” and “male” work. The present gendered division of labour is the greatest obstacle to equality between women and men.

Nowhere in the labour market do women work as “men”. They are judged by a standard determining how wage-earning women should be and what they should do. More often than not this includes also their private life, where they must prove that they are “feminine”, by having children and doing activities like bun-baking. Women do still have the main responsibility for “small-scale life”, implying that everyday life outside work is functioning well. This standard for women is valid also in case they would enter some formerly male-dominated working areas, well, perhaps even more then. Women must follow implicit norms; they must be “feminine” even as ministers, heads, graduate engineers, or carpenters. It can be easier in private life than it is in working life to differ and maintain one’s individuality. To at least as great an extent that working-life standards limit private life, they do also work in an opposite direction.

Stockholm, August 2007

Other web sites

Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek [Labour movement archives and library], ARAB in Stockholm, established in 1902. The archive comprises more than 5,000 collections, including about 600 personal archives. Publication: the journal “Arbetarhistoria” [‘History of Labour’]
Arbetets museum [Museum of work] ] in Norrköping was founded in 1991, with the mission to “document labour and make the history of labour come alive”.
Kvindekilder [Women’s sources]. The history of women in Denmark, e.g. about their entrance into the labour market and struggle for equal wage.
Kvinner i fagbevegelsen [Trade union women] : ]: thematic pages. Norwegian women’s history of labour – their struggle for the right to work, organise themselves in trade unions, obtain equal wages, etc.