“What, I Pray You, Shall I Do with the Ballance?”: Single Women's Economy of Migration

Abstract

This article compares the experiences of independent women migrants in the textile cities of Preston, England; Paisley, Scotland; and Lowell, Massachusetts in the period 1850–1881. There are essentially two models describing single women's migration in the current historical literature. Both describe young women primarily in terms of personal economy and what kind of relationship they maintained with their parents before and after migration. The first emphasizes that though the European migrants were physically removed from their parents, they remained economically tied to their families; the second refers specifically to American women, defining them as emphatically independent, economically and socially, and cut off from their families. Direct comparison reveals remarkable similarity of experience for these young women. Though migrants in each city chose different occupations, each chose occupations that provided accommodation. Most became financially independent, rather than primarily contributors to a family economy, but maintained important supportive ties with family.