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Gendered Discourses and the Making of Protective Labor Legislation in England, 1830–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Extract

The crowding together of numbers of the young in both sexes in factories, is a prolific source of moral delinquency. The stimulus of the heated atmosphere, the contact of the opposite sexes, the example of the lasciviousness upon the animal passion—all have conspired to produce a very early development of sexual appetencies. (Peter Gaskell, The Manufacturing Population of England, 1833)

The prolonged absence from home of the wife and mother caused an enormous amount of infant mortality and it must cause the elder children to be more or less neglected. It deadened the sense of parental responsibility. (Thomas Maudsley, secretary of the Committee Promoting the Nine Hours Movement, 1872)

From a purely physical point of view the nation's strength is measured by its reproductive power and the high percentage of the fitness of its children …. Women's work becomes the cause of physical degeneracy and of inability on the part of women to rise to the dignity of the completed act of motherhood. (Dr. Thomas Oliver, lecture before the Eugenics Education Society, 1911)

Each of these statements was made as part of the public debate about enacting protective labor legislation in England. They were diverse manifestations of a single idea—the idea that women's work outside the home was dangerous to society and required state intervention. Between 1830 and 1914, a discourse of danger dominated the public discussion of female labor. Yet, as the opening quotations suggest, different types of danger were emphasized at various times.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1998

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References

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37 Manchester Guardian (11 June 1873).

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56 Ibid.

57 The so-called dangerous trades clauses were included in the Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, 54 Vict. IV, c. 159, and the Factory and Workshop Act, 1895, 58 Vict. III, c. 133. Their creation has been analyzed in Malone, Carolyn, “Sex in Industry: Protective Labor Legislation in England, 1891–1914” (Ph.D. diss., University of Rochester, 1991), pp. 41112Google Scholar.

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63 Ibid.

64 Daily Chronicle (21 December 1892).

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73 Home Secretary Matthew Ridley sent instructions in a letter dated 28 April 1898, found in PRO, HO45/1017/B12393P, item no. 1. He instructed them to ascertain whether the danger from lead could be diminished or removed through the use of a less soluble compound of lead or a leadless glaze, the feasibility of manufacturers using substitute ingredients, and the adoption of other preventive measures.

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78 The Daily Chronicle published a series of articles under the heading of “Lead in the Home.” It included, e.g., “Another Death from Lead Poisoning: Mother and Daughter Killed by the Lead” (8 June 1898) and “Whole Families Desolated: A Story of Mothers and Children” (18 June 1898).

79 Daily Chronicle (27 June 1898).

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81 This rule was unveiled at a deputation on 19 May 1898. The transcript is item no. 10 in PRO, HO45/9933/B22610.

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85 Arbitration began in 1901 when working men objected to the proposal that they undergo medical inspection.

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89 Ogle-Moore, Helen and Hare, Edith, “The Work of Women in the White Lead Trade,” in The Conditions of Women and the Factory Acts, ed. Boucherett, Jessie and Blackburn, Helen (London, 1896), pp. 7784Google Scholar.

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