The politics of work: Feminism, professionalisation and women inspectors of factories and workshops

Abstract

This article is a case study of the first women appointed as official government factory inspectors in Britain. It uses the diaries, memoirs and official documentation left by these women - most notably, Lucy Deane - to explore the tensions surrounding the meaning of 'work' and the shifting alignments within the women's movement in 1890s Britain. The article questions existing feminist interpretations of both the work of the women inspectors and the way in which it affected the intellectual concerns of the turn of the century women's movement. Rather than bringing about an increased cross-class identification between upper-middle and working-class women, this study argues that the women factory inspectors relied upon aristocratic patronage and an increasing sense of class distinction between themselves and working-class women to reinforce their professional identities.