from working daughters to working mothers: production and reproduction in an industrial community

Abstract

The increased participation of women in the paid labor force in the 20th-century United States has been marked by a transition from an era of "working daughters" to one of "working mothers." Using data from a New England industrial community, I trace the connection between this transition and the growth and decline of the textile industry, the incorporation of immigrants into a hierarchical production process, and family strategies for allocating productive and reproductive labor. While the era of working daughters left the allocation of reproductive labor (housework and child care) intact, the wage work of recent immigrant mothers has had a more profound impact on families by reallocating some of "women's work." Nevertheless, many families have continued to maintain an ideology that values the husband's authority, emphasizes respect for parents, and stresses differences between men and women, all of these in the face of considerable changes in actual behavior. [women, work, immigrants, ideology, reproduction]