
Factory Girls
The Working Lives of Women and Children
Paul Chrystal(Author)
Pen & Sword History (Publisher)
Published on 21. September 2022
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-1-3990-1192-1 (ISBN)
Description
Ever since there have been factories women and children have, more often than not, worked in those factories. What is perhaps less well known is that women also worked underground in coal mines and overground scaling the inside of chimneys. Young children were also put to work in factories and coalmines; they were deployed inside chimneys, often half-starved so that they could shin up ever narrower flues.
This book charts the unhappy but aspirational story of women and children at work through the Industrial Revolution to the beginning of the 20th century. Without women there would have been no pre-industrial cottage industries, without women the Industrial Revolution would not have been nearly as industrial and nowhere near as revolutionary.
Many women, and children, were obliged to take up work in the mills and factories - long hours, dangerous, often toxic conditions, monotony, bullying, abuse and miserly pay were the usual hallmarks of a day's work - before they headed homeward to their other job: keeping home and family together.
This long overdue and much needed book also covers the social reformers, the role of feminism and activism and the various Factory Acts and trade unionism.
We examine how women and children suffered chronic occupational diseases and disabling industrial injuries - life changing and life shortening - and often a one way ticket to the workhouse. The book concludes with a survey of the art, literature and the music which formed the soundtrack for the factory girl and the climbing boys.
This book charts the unhappy but aspirational story of women and children at work through the Industrial Revolution to the beginning of the 20th century. Without women there would have been no pre-industrial cottage industries, without women the Industrial Revolution would not have been nearly as industrial and nowhere near as revolutionary.
Many women, and children, were obliged to take up work in the mills and factories - long hours, dangerous, often toxic conditions, monotony, bullying, abuse and miserly pay were the usual hallmarks of a day's work - before they headed homeward to their other job: keeping home and family together.
This long overdue and much needed book also covers the social reformers, the role of feminism and activism and the various Factory Acts and trade unionism.
We examine how women and children suffered chronic occupational diseases and disabling industrial injuries - life changing and life shortening - and often a one way ticket to the workhouse. The book concludes with a survey of the art, literature and the music which formed the soundtrack for the factory girl and the climbing boys.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Barnsley
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Illustrations
32 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 165 mm
Width: 240 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
544 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-3990-1192-1 (9781399011921)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
01/2024
Pen & Sword History
€7.48
Available for download

E-Book
12/2022
Pen & Sword Books
€0.00
Available for download
Person
Paul Chrystal was educated at the Universities of Hull and Southampton where he took degrees in Classics. He is contributor to a number of history magazines and the author of over 120 books published since 2010. He has contributed to a 6-part series for BBC2 celebrating the history of some of Britain's most iconic craft industries'. In 2019 he took over the history editorship of Yorkshire Archaeological Journal'. He was part of the research team for a 2022 episode of Who do you think you are?' and is working for Mars Confectionary UK's on their 90th anniversary in 2022. Paul is married with three children and lives near York.