The employment of working class women in Leeds, 1880-1914.

Between 1880 and 1914 women's industrial employment in Leeds was transformed
by the introduction of the factory system in the consumer-goods trades. Women
came to predominate in ready-made tailoring, but have been neglected in
histories of the city.
Recent studies have argued that a. focus on the sex division of labour in
social production challenges conventional interpretations of working-class
history. This thesis contributes to current debates by examining women's work
in Leeds. It argues that the sex division of labour and the tensions between
sex and class had a critical impact on the development of the local labour
movement. Studies of women's work have shown the importance of regional
variations in the pattern of female employment. Leeds provides the
opportunity to study a hitherto neglected group, - female factory workers
employed outside cotton textiles.
Wonen's subordinate role within industry and their attitudes to work were
structured by the experience of work itself as well as by their early
socialisatjon and role in the family. The first section examines the
conditions of women's industrial employment. It suggests that job segregation
by sex structured the specific features of women's work in Leeds. Section two locates the extent and type of womens work in Leeds in the
context of the social conditions of family life and contemporary expectations
of appropriate sex roles. The varied family backgrounds, age and marital
status affected the attitudes of individual women to paid employment and
modified its effects..
The final section examines the attitudes of the Leeds labour movement towards
women workers and the tensions between sex and class. The labour movement
failed to address women's needs and to offer a real challenge to their
subordinate industrial position. This weakened union organisation and
independent labour politics in the city.