Persistence of the putting-out system
by: kagerkevin
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Word Count: 296
Many married women added to their family's collective economy by running boardinghouses, taking in laundry and sewing, and doing piecework in the home. Piecework rates were so low that workers had to put in long hours to make any money, but this was the most common form of employment for immigrant women in the nation's largest cities. Compared to the very small number of married women who went out to work, the number who took in work was large. Most married women still spent the majority of their time caring for their large households, preparing food for their families, and organizing the activities of their children.
Technology had made certain household tasks obsolete, but the time demands on homemakers did not lessen, because other domestic duties were expanded. Labor-saving devices such as vacuum cleaners and clothes-washing equipment decreased the time spent on each task, but these devices encouraged higher living standards: clothes were washed more often and houses were kept spick-and-span with less servant help. Most food was still bought unprocessed, and much of it was grown and preserved at home.
As the economic development accompanying industrialization proceeded, the range of jobs available to women expanded. Employers began hiring women for teaching, clerical work, and retail sales. However, they were viewed as a temporary labor force, expected to return to the home as soon as they married. Outright prohibitions against hiring married women and the firing of single women as soon as they married reinforced social mores about women's rightful place being in the home. Male trade-union members argued against women's employment in manufacturing because they would work for less pay at a time when men were arguing for a "family wage"--income enough to support a wife at home and children.
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