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Class and Gender: Conflicting Components of Women's Behaviour in the Textile Mills of Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing, 1880–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Patricia Hilden
Patricia Hilden
Affiliation:
Emory University, Georgia
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Extract

There is at present much interest in historical explanations for the political attitudes and collective behaviour of industrial workers. Typically, such I explanations develop out of descriptions of production relations. In some cases, historians have adduced the constituents of such relations (including shopfloor conditions, job skills and hierarchies of workers and employers) to explain strikes, unions, and mass-based political parties. In other cases, historians of labouring people have emphasized one or another of these elements – e.g. relative levels of skill – in efforts to explain collective behaviour. Still others have taken a more general view, ascribing workers' collective rebellion to the history of industrial capitalism itself; in this view, conditions for rebellion depend upon the historical moment, or conjuncture.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , June 1984 , pp. 361 - 385
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 See, e.g., Hobsbawm, Eric, Labouring men (London, 1964)Google Scholar and essays in Saville, John, (ed.), Essays in labour history (2 vols., London, 1960, 1971)Google Scholar. More sophisticated studies include Foster, John, Class struggle and the industrial revolution (London, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Crossick, Geofrey, An artisan elite in Victorian society: Kentish London, 1840–1880 (London, 1978)Google Scholar. For arguments which propose a ‘rebellion point’ in the history of industrial capitalism, see Giddens, Anthony, The class struggle of advanced societies (New York, 1975)Google Scholar and Mann, Michael, Consciousness and action among the Western working class (London, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Early work on women often used this approach. See, e.g., Reddy, William, ‘Family and factory: French linen weavers in the belle époque’, Journal of Social History, viii, 4 (1974), 102Google Scholar; Hobsbawm, Eric, ‘Man and woman in socialist iconography’, History Workshop Journal, VI (1978), 131Google Scholar.

3 So persistent are such beliefs that some historians have documented women workers' militance while concluding that they were not militant. See Strumingher, Laura, Women and the making of the working class: Lyon, 1830–1870 (Montreal, 1979)Google Scholar, and a more sophisticated example of this problem in McMillan, James, Housewife or harlot: the place of women in French society, 1870–1940 (Brighton, 1981)Google Scholar.

4 Berlin, Isaiah, ‘The concept of scientific history’, in Concepts and categories, Hardy, Henry, ed. (New York1, 1981), pp. 111–12Google Scholar.

5 See Pierrard, Pierre, Histoire du Nord (Paris, 1978), p. 349Google Scholar.

6 This union was unique in that it belonged to both the POF and the non-political Confédération géntrale du travail (CGT) – at least until 1906, when it was expelled from the CGT because of its political activities.

7 Numbers are taken from Archives départmental du Nord (hereafter ADN) M 611/18, ‘Travail des femmes adultes dans les manufactures. Enquéte, 1882–3’.

8 These figures are estimates drawn from a piece in La Bataille Syndicaliste, 20 avril 1914, and from France. Résultats statistiques du recensement des industries et professions, 12 mars 1896 (Paris, 1896), pp. 64– 5Google Scholar and France, Chambre des députés, 8e législature, session de 1904, procès-verbaux de la commission chargée deproéder à une enquéte sur l'ital de Vindustrie textile et la condition des ouvriers tisseurs, vol. 2 (Paris, 1906Google Scholar) (hereafter Enquête sur l' Industrie 1904), déposition, lapos;inspecteur départemental, Roubaix, p. 223; déposition, La Solidarité, Tourcoing, p. 427; déposition, M. Gillet, l'inspecteur du travail, Lille, première section, p. 338; déposition, M. Herbe, l'inspecteur du travail, Lille, deuxième section, p. 339.

9 Wage data for Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing from Archives nationales (AN), C 3019, ‘Enquéte des situations ouvrières, 1872–1885’.

10 See Guilbert, Madeleine, Les femmes et p'organisation syndicate avant 1914 (Paris, 1966), 18Google Scholar.

11 Factory inspectors commented frequently that women were slower because they took greater care. See, e.g. the comments of Boulin, M., ‘Les accidents evitables dans les filatures et dans les peignages’, in France. Bulletin de P inspection du travail 1913 (Paris, 1914), 348Google Scholar.

12 France. Office du travail. Statistiques des gréves, 1896, 1902, 1906, 1911.

13 These are optimistic estimates drawn from figures quoted in Enquéte sur l' industrie 1904, pp. 162, 328, and from Bonneff, Léon et Maurice, La vie tragique des travaillcurs (Paris, 1914), pp. 37–9Google Scholar.

14 See France. Salaires et coû d' existence, 1906 (Paris, 1907), p. 165Google Scholar.

16 Child minders were usually elderly or disabled women who lived in the same courtyard as the parents.

16 The story is told by Milhaud, Caroline in L'Ouvrière en France (Paris, 1907), pp. 35–6Google Scholar. Armentieères textile wages were in fact higher than those in Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing. One 30-year-old tubercular roubaisienne, a former textile worker, told visitors that her family often lived on her husband's pay, 2.50 fr. a day. See Bonneffs, Vie tragique, p. 25.

17 These changes are detailed in Ghesquiere, Henri, ‘L'Action des municipalités socialistes: assistance communale á Lille’, Le Mouvement Socialiste, I (1899), 117Google Scholar; Félix Chabroilland, ‘La Municipalité de Roubaix’, in ibid., in (1900), 545.

18 In 1890 the POF newspaper printed a poem by the worker-poet Clovis Hugues which described this ‘fifth quarter’. See ‘Pauvre Mère’, Cri du Travailleur, 13 septembre 1890. Another contemporary, Charles Poisson, called earnings from prostitution the ouvrières' ‘pain amer’. See Poisson, . Le salaire des femmes (Paris. 1906), 109Google Scholar.

19 A compelling account of the smugglers' world is found in a novel by the roubaissien, Maxence van der Meersch, Hath Mot the Potter, trans, by Hopkins, Gerard (New York, 1937)Google Scholar . The story of a young local woman's imprisonment for smuggling is told by Broutchoux, B. in ‘Celina Renoir -Une fille torturée’, L'Action Syndicate, 6 mars 1904Google Scholar.

20 There is no evidence that young men commonly lived away from home for extended periods, but they were more likely to take odd jobs including smuggling for part of their youth.

21 Smith, Bonnie G., in Ladies of the leisure class: the bourgeoises of northern France in the nineteenth century (Princeton, 1981Google Scholar) described the visits of bourgeois women to the homes of the poor. These bourgeoises, in Smith's words, ‘scrutiniz[ed] the household and offer[ed] advice on domestic tasks or personal dilemmas’. In Lomme, she added, ‘the bourgeoises ransacked working-class quarters from top to bottom in search of signs of neglected female duties’ (p. 139).

22 Ouvrières' heavy domestic duties led socialists to decry their ‘double slavery’. In 1894 the POF militant Aline Valette wrote, ‘Just as the word “proletarian” applied to men is synonymous with work and suffering, how much more so it is, when applied to women, a synonym for double work, double suffering’ (Le Travailleur, 16 mai 1894). Louise Chaboseau-Napias used a similar argument in her article, ‘Les femmes et le socialisme’ in I'Humanité, 19 février 1907.

23 Capy, Marcelle, ‘Filature au mouillé’, La Bataille Syndicalist, 26 mars 1914Google Scholar.

24 Compain, Marie-Louise, La femme dans les organisations ouvrières (Paris, 1910), 64Google Scholar.

25 When one Roubaix wool mill owner offered to raise men's wages in order to break a strike, the men refused, and the strike continued. The CGT journal, Voix du Peuple, applauded the action in these words: ‘Les ouvriers ont refusé cette solution et se solidarisant avec les ouvrières ont cesse le travail’. See ‘Dans le Nord’, Voix, 13–20 avril 1902.

26 These latter donations of 10 or 20 centimes provided workers with a rare outlet for self-expression. The donation was listed in local socialist papers accompanied by political statements such as ‘Un qui merité la bagne, mais qui se crois plus honnête que Ferry’ (Le Cri de l'ouvrier, 30 novembre-7 décembre 1884), ‘Pour que prêtres et moines soient tous crevés avant demain’ (ibid. 7–14 décembre 1884), ‘Je voudrais que le conseil municipal de Tourcoing soit au diable’ (ibid. 21–28 décembre 1884) and, ‘J'ai la tête dure, mais je commence á comprendre le programme revolutionnaire’ (ibid. 4–11 janvier 1885).

27 When local guesdists testified before parliament, they claimed to represent twice as many textile workers as were officially party members on the grounds that women participated but could rarely afford to join. See Enquête sur I'industrie 1904, II, dépositions, Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing.

28 Data comes from France. Résultats statistiques du recensement des industries et professions (Dénombrement général de la population du 29 mars 1896) IV (Paris, 1901). I am grateful to T. R. Judt for bringing these figures to my attention.

29 Women's lower literacy rates are described in François Furet and Ozouf, Jacques, ‘Literacy and industrialization: the case of the Département du Nord in France’, Journal of European Economic History, V, 1 (1976), 5Google Scholar.

30 Albert Aftalion, quoted in Bonneffs, Vie tragique, p. 29.

31 Capy, Marcelle, ‘Drames du travail’, Balaille Syndicaliste, 17 avril 1914Google Scholar.

32 Pulligny, M. Leclerc de, ‘Les conditions de I'hygiène dans les filatures de lin’, France. Bulletin de I'inspection du travail 1902 (Paris, 1903), 233Google Scholar.

33 Brisson, Paul, Histoire du travail et des travailleurs (Paris, 1906), 443Google Scholar.

34 Livrets were issued to each working person and contained a complete work history. They were illegal, but mill owners were not punished for requiring them. See Bonneffs, Vie tragique, p. 42, and Enquêle sur I'industrie 194, déposition, Fédération nationale des ouvriers textiles, p. 288; rapport, Chambre de commerce, Tourcoing, p. 359; déposition, Chambre de commerce, Roubaix, p. 160.

35 These increased religious obligations did not reflect any local sympathy for the ideas of social Catholicism. That movement's activities aroused virtually no enthusiasm among textile owners. Instead, the patronat frequently articulated their conviction that they were responsible only for workers' spiritual well-being, not for their material conditions. See l'Abbé, M.Talmy, R., L'Association catholique des patrons du Nord, 1884–1895 (Lille, 1962)Google Scholar.

36 Stories of harassment abound in the local popular press. One story, ‘A travers les bagnes – Chez Leblanc’ reported a supervisor called ‘Piton’ who forced ouvrières to submit to him in order to avoid fines. At least one woman who spurned Piton's advances was fined and then fired. See Le Cri de l'ouvrier, 15–22 mars 1885.

37 Reported in Les Travailleur, 8 février 1893.

38 See ‘Chez Pollet Lille’, Le Cri du Travailleur, 31 juillet–6 août 1887.

39 Le Travailleur, 16 mai 1894.

40 One description of this system appears in Enquête sur I'industrie 1904, déposition, Fédération nationale des ouvriers textiles, Lille, p. 288. Lists of factory rules are found in AN, F12, 4660, ‘Armentières: mars 1882’ and in Dumortier, Jacques, Le syndicat patronal textile de Roubaix Tourcoing de 1942 à 1972 (Lille, 1975) anexe viii, p. 233Google Scholar . Stories of unreasonable fines are found in Capy, Marcelle, ‘Filature de lin’, La Bataille Syndicaliste, 29 mars 1914Google Scholar and Capy, ‘Filature du coton’, ibid. 6 avril 1914.

41 Workers' hostility to ‘crows’ often appeared in the local press. See, e.g., Le Cri de Pouvrier, 30 novembre–7 décembre 1884, and 21–28 décembre 1884.

42 See Cri du Travailleur, 2–9 octobre 1887.

43 These groups are described in ibid. 18–25 février 1888.

44 Complaints of this form of factory discipline are found in ibid. 2–9 octobre 1887, 1–8 Janvier 1888, 18–25 février 1888.

45 See ibid. 18–25 février 1888.

46 See ibid. 2–9 octobre 1887.

47 See note 17, and Ghesquière, Henri, ‘L'Assistance intellectuelle à Lille’, Le Mouvement Socialiste, 1 (1899), 230Google Scholar .

48 Quoted in Le Petil Jaune, 14 mai 1901.

49 Textile workers were among the least organized workers in France. In 1901 the CGT membership rates showed the following: textiles, 9 per cent of workforce; mines, 60 per cent; printing, 31 per cent; metallurgy, 21 per cent. See Lefranc, Georges, Le mouvement syndical sous la troisième république (Paris, 1967), p. 106Google Scholar.

50 See Enquête sur l'industrie 1904, déposition, Fédération syndicale de l'industrie tourquennoise, P. 397.

51 This group is described in Le Petit Jaune, 9 Janvier 1902.

52 Figures for local syndicats rouges show the following: 1905, two Lille ‘reds’ together claimed 1, 287 members (511 women); 1905, one Tourcoing rouge had 900 members (50 women); 1909, the Chambre syndicale ouvrier textile de Roubaix et Tourcoing had 6, 250 members (1,250 women). See Pierrard, Pierre, Lille et les lillois (Paris, 1967), p. 126Google Scholar; Seuer, Georges, Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing: Mitropole en miettes (Paris, 1971), pp. 16–17Google Scholar; Bonneffs, Vie tragique, pp. 24–8.

53 See Seilhac, Léon de, La grive du atissage de Lille, (Paris, 1909), pp. 41–4Google Scholar.

54 ADN, M 596/2, ‘Rapport 16 mars 1893. Au ministère du commerce et de l'industrie’.

55 See ADN M 596/66, ‘Syndicats professionnels’ and l'Abbé Talmy, L'Association catholique, p. 110.

56 See Maurice Petitcollet, Les syndicats ouvriers de l'industrie textile dans l'arrondissement de Lille (n.p., n.d), p. 103.

57 Ibid. pp. 65–7.

58 Ibid. p. 136.

59 See ADN, M 596/68, ‘Syndicate professionnels, Tourcoing’ also ADN M 596/66, ‘Etat des syndicate’. Other figures, which fall between optimistic estimates and those of the prefect, are found in Dumortier, Syndicat patronal, p. 28.

60 Mme Motte's efforts are recounted in Catrice, M. l'Abbé Paul, Roubaix au delà des mers (Roubaix, 1969), p. 65Google Scholar.

61 Their activities are detailed in France. Les associations professionnelles ouvrères. Office du Travail (Paris, 1901), pp. 375–404Google Scholar.

62 Pierrard, Pierre, in La vie ouvrière à Lille sous Le Second Empire (Paris, 1965) describes these nuns' activities on p. 412Google Scholar.

63 See Cri du Travailleur, 18–25 février 1888.

64 Enqultê sur l'industrie 1904, déposition, Syndicat des ouvriers de l'industrie textile, Roubaix, p. 173, and Fédération nationale des ouvriers en textile, Lille, p. 272.

65 Bonneffs, Vie tragique, pp. 41–2.

66 See ‘La religion, aide à l'xploitation’, Voix du Peuple, 4–11 novembre 1906.

67 See note 65.

68 Although precise numbers of workers are impossible to determine, these figures are drawn from those figures available. See ADN M 6ii/18, ‘Travail des femmes adultes dans les manufactures. Enquête, 1882–3’ France. Résultats statistiques, 12 mars 1896; Enquête sur l'Industrie 1904, ii, 223, 427, 338, 339; Bataille Syndicaliste, 20 avril 1914.

69 See ADN M 594/27, ‘Travail de l'industrie. Inspection’ M 594/5, ‘Le Travail des enfants dans l'industrie, 1897–99’ Milhaud, L'Ouvrière, p. 189.

70 Some of the more gruesome accidents, including scalpings, are described in Capy, Marcelle, ‘Drames au Travail’, Bataille Syndicaliste, 17 avril 1914Google Scholar. See also workers' and inspectors' complaints of the hazards of long hours without breaks in: Voix du Peuple, 20 avril 1900; Enquête sur l'industrie 1904, déposition, M. Boulisset, M. Herbo et Gillet, inspecteurs pour Lille, Roubaix et Tourcoing, pp. 322–7; Max-Albert, M., ‘Legislation ouvrière: l'inspecteur du travail en 1897’, in Le Mouvement Socialiste 1 (1899), 3–43Google Scholar; ADNM 594/3, ‘Travail dans l'industrie, Procès-verbaux, 1883–92’ ADN M 594/7, ‘Procès-verbaux, 1896’.

71 The textile workforce had never been clearly divided by sex. DrVillermé, L. R., in Etat physique et moral des ouvriers des manufactures de colon, laine… (Paris, 1840) i, 4–5Google Scholar, noted that even washing, carding, dividing and packing raw cotton were performed by both men and women, as were virtually all the other main tasks in the mills. At the turn of the century, this was still generally the case in the Nord.

72 See Enquête sur l'industrie 1904, ‘Extraits du rapport du juge de paix au canton Roubaix-Nord’, p. 218, and reports of some small strikes in Le Travailleur, 3 décembre 1892.

73 The male hostility to female workers expressed elsewhere in France in ou r period was rare in the Nord textile industry. A classic expression of this hostility is found in Libre Entretiens, troisième édition, 19 Janvier 1909, ‘Le travail féminin en concurrence avec le travail masculin’. Thousands of Belgian workers in the Nord's textile mills provided a substantial alternative target for hostility. The view that Belgians absorbed hostility that might otherwise have been directed by male workers towards female workers was expressed by some Tourcoing magistrates in 1904. See Enquête sur l'industrie 1904, déposition, juges de paix de Tourcoing, p. 448.

74 See ANF7 13820 ‘Grèves. Textiles’, rapport. Chambre syndicale ouvrière textile à Roubaix. Commissariat spécial du police (month and day illegible) 1909.

75 Quoted in Le Travailleur, 18 janvier 1893. The bracketed word, ‘faire’, illegible in the source, was suggested as a likely possibility by Professor Maurice Larkin, to whom I am grateful.

76 See France. Statistiques des grèves, 1896, 1902, 1904, 1906, 1909, 1911. These festive mass strikes are detailed in Hilden, Patricia J., ‘French socialism and women textile workers, 1880–1914: a regional study’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1981, 140–61Google Scholar.

77 That this tradition of turning a strike into a fête lasted into the interwar years is demonstrated in Maxence, van der Meersch'sQuand les sirènus se taisent (Paris, 1933)Google Scholar.

78 Admittedly, political leaders were appealing to a substantial group among their national constituency, who believed that women workers posed a threat to men's jobs. Many strikes resulted from this fear. In 1896 the Statistiques des grèves recorded at least 10 strikes against the employment of women – strikes which involved some 1, 627 men. The employment of women ranked eleventh among the most frequent causes of strikes in our period in the Statistiques. In the Lille area, however, there were only two small strikes – of wool mill trieurs protesting against the hiring of trieuses. There is some evidence that the strikes were encouraged by a police agent-provocateur, Victor Capart, who had successfully infiltrated the local guesdist organization. See ADM M 625/106, ‘Grèves. Textiles, 1899’. Capart's song, ‘Les Trieuses’, sold to benefit the strikers, expressed (in local patois) unusually negative attitudes toward women workers.

79 Clipping from L'Humanité found in AM F7 13820, ‘Textiles. Presse. 1909’.

80 The history of these groups comes from the following sources: ADN M 154/62, 'Partis politiques – socialistes 1870–1897; Comptes-rendus. 7e congrès national du Parti ouvrier, Roubaix, 29 mars-7 avril 1884 (Lille, 1885); Le Travailleur, 3 dècembre 1892, 3 Janvier 1893, 11 Janvier 1893, 18 avril 1893, 6 mai 1893, 12 août 1893, 11 octobre 1893, 24 Janvier 1894, 26 septembre 1894, 10 Janvier 1897; Comptes-rendus. 12e congrès national du Parti ouvrier, Mantes, 1894 (Lille, 1895), ADn M 154/73, ‘Police politique. Propagande socialiste. Rapports’.

81 Ibid.

82 The three most popular speakers were Paule Mink (usually misspelt ‘Minck’), Louise Michel, Léonie Rouzade and Aline Valette. Le Forçat, throughout 1882 and 1883 reported Mink's speeches in the Lille area. One of Vallette's speeches, ‘La femme dans l'usine’, is reported in full in Le Travailleur, 3 février 1894. Other reports of women's speeches are found in ADN M 154/76, ‘Lille, 13 mai 1901’ (which reports a speech by Mme Sorgue), ADM 154/74, ‘Rapport. Police. Lille, 9 novembre 1901’ (which reports a speech by a woman called variously ‘Pajaud’ and ‘Pegeau’).

83 A discussion of this change is found in Sowerwine, Charles, Les femmes et le socialisme (Paris, 1978)Google Scholar and, at the local level, in Hilden. ‘French socialism’.

84 In Willard's, ClaudeLes Guesdistes (Paris, 1965)Google Scholar short biographies of some of the most prominent male guesdists of the Lille area include a notation about wives' wages which clearly supported the men after they had been ‘indexed’ (i.e. blacklisted) for political activities. These male militants included Henri Carette of Roubaix (p. 610), Clément Delcluze (p. 616), Gustave Delory (p. 616), Henri Guesqiière (p. 625), and Octave Poulet (p. 640–1) of Lille. Delory's sister, Maria Devernay, and Mme Carette were leaders of local socialist-feminist groups. Other female relations of male militants probably played active roles in guesdist activities, but evidence on this question is sparse. This may explain why Willard made no mention of guesdist women's groups or activities.

85 The issue of female suffrage arose at various party congresses from the 1890s onward. Delegates from some departments – e.g. the Nord, the Isère, the Rhône – were consistently unanimous for suffrage, others were mixed, and still others unanimously hostile. It is interesting to note that some of the supporting departments had early socialist-feminist groups like those found in the Lille area. Of these, those of the Isere, led by women textile workers throughout our period, were perhaps the most militant. The politics of Isère ouvrières in the early Third Republic are being examined by Raymond Jonas for a Ph.D. thesis at the University of California, Berkeley (forthcoming). Tony Judt is researching the behaviour of various departmental socialist groups toward the question of women's suffrage for Labour and socialism in France: historical and political essays (Oxford: forthcoming).

86 ‘Injustice’ is used here in Barrington Moore Jr's sense of the term. See Injustice. The social bases of obedience and revolt (London, 1979).