Women's work and family health: evidence from the Staffordshire Potteries, 1890–1920

Abstract

The progress of industrialization throughout the nineteenth century had profound effects on health and mortality. One relationship that contemporaries found particularly alarming was the potentially damaging effect that the employment of women in industry outside the home could have on their families' health. The fear expressed by public health officials was that women's employment would lead to neglect of their family duties and subsequently put their children's health at risk. Women were also regarded as more susceptible to industrial hazards, particularly to lead. Hence, women's work was seen to have important consequences for maternal and infant health and was considered incompatible with their traditional duties within the home. The introduction of legislation to restrict women's employment opportunities during the latter half of the nineteenth century was partly in recognition of this conflict between work and home. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the importance of good mothering was increasingly cited by public health reformers, mainly male and middle-class, alarmed at the persistent high level of infant mortality in urban areas. In industrial areas where there were opportunities for women's employment, the extent to which it contributed to high levels of mortality became a prominent public health issue associated with growing concern over standards of motherhood. In response to increasing agitation over the employment of mothers, the 1891 Factory Act prohibited employers from knowingly hiring women within a month of childbirth.