Anaïs Le Fèvre-Berthelot American Women in the 20th century

American Women and Work at the Turn

of the 20th Century
Introduction: Women in the City
5% of Americans lived in cities in 1790; 15% in 1850 (at least 2,500 people); 40% in 1900
and by 1920, a majority of Americans (51.2%) lived in cities.
Coupled with the second industrial revolution that took place from 1870 to the beginning
of WWI, this process of urbanization profoundly transformed women’s lives. Whereas the
family used to be the central production unit, it became a consumer unit in a market economy.
While a majority of women still worked at home, taking care of their families or taking in
lodgers, a growing proportion of women began working for wages outside the home. In 1870,
women represented 15% of paid workers; 18% in 1900 and 20.5% in 1920. In 1870, 14% of
women worked for wages; they were 24% in 1920. These evolutions marked the redefinition
of femininity as women thus gained some freedom and visibility.

I. Women at Work at the Turn of the 20th Century

A. A Varied Female Labor Force

From 1870 to 1920, the majority of women in the work force were single women. They
mostly worked on farms or occupied manual factory positions and service jobs. White women
generally worked until they got married and enjoyed little upward mobility. 1 The situation
was slightly different for African American women whose social and economic conditions
were such that mothers and married women often had to work outside the house. “More than
half of the female working population was foreign-born and/or nonwhite.” 2 Women tended to
work for wages between 16 and 24: around 30% of them were employed. The proportion
dropped to 20% for women between 25 and 34 and to 14% for women over 35.3
Women were hired in part because employers thought they would accept lower wages and
monotonous tasks without complaining as much as men. On average, working women earned
half of what men made. This was in part a consequence of a highly structured sexual division
of labor: women’s options were limited to the less qualified and lowest-paying positions.

B. Domestic servants

In 1900, a quarter of women wage earners worked as servants or waitresses. 4 Domestic

servants lived in with the families they worked for. They were closely supervised by their
employers, had little to no free time and received little pay. Native-born white women
avoided domestic service when they could and these positions were generally filled by
uneducated, poor women. Many of these women were young immigrants, especially in urban
areas. In large cities, two-fifths of the white immigrant women entered domestic service. 5

1
Claudia Golding, “The Work and Wages of Single Women, 1870 to 1920,” The Journal of Economic History
40, no. 1 (March 1980): 81–88, http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/dpaterson/econ532/07labor/goldin3.pdf.
2
Ellen Carol DuBois and Lynn Dumenil, Through Women’s Eyes: An American History with Documents, 4
edition (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015), 408.
3
“Statistics of Women At Work” (US Census Bureau, 1900), 11,
https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/00779830ch1.pdf.
4
“Statistics of Women At Work,” 32.
5
“Statistics of Women At Work,” 46.

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 Anaïs Le Fèvre-Berthelot American Women in the 20th century

African American women, who were excluded from most other occupations because of
racism, represented a large proportion of domestic servants. [Documents #11; 12] In the
Southern States, they represented around 75% of all domestic servants. 6 Because they were
often married with children, black women generally did not board with their employers.

C. Factory Workers

During the Progressive Era, industrial workers represented 22 percent of the female labor
force.7 Female factory workers worked mostly in textile mills. This was not a completely new
phenomenon since the first industrial revolution saw the birth, in the 1830s, of the Lowell
Mills in Massachusetts, where young women experienced the effects of mechanization. At the
turn of the 20th century, black women were excluded from textile factories (less than 500
“colored” women were listed as textile mills operatives in the 1900 Census). Working
conditions were harsh and often unhealthy. When workers got sick or injured, there was no
insurance system to support them. Women working in factories were able to socialize and the
money they earned offered a little autonomy and a better status at home.

D. New Areas of Women’s Paid Work

In the early 20th century, women had new job opportunities. Educated women could enter
clerical work, an area that used to be entirely male. But as women entered offices as
secretaries or typist, the work became more mechanized and no longer offered upward
mobility.
At that time, women also “gained greater entry into some professional fields,” 8 i.e. careers
that require special training or education. In 1900 there were around 7,000 female physicians
and surgeons, representing 5.6 percent of the profession. 9 In 1910 there were less than 600
women practicing law in the United States, they were almost 1,800 ten years later. 10 The
attendants and assistants of (male) lawyers and surgeons were mostly female.
The majority of educated women became nurses and teachers. Teaching had been a
“woman’s occupation at the primary level since the 1830s.” 11 In the early 20th century,
teachers’ training was transferred to collegiate institutions. A majority of librarians were also
women.
Segregation excluded African American women from professional training and
organizations but they organized their own vocational schools to train nurses and found
employment as teachers or physicians in the separate institutions that served black
communities.12

II. The Rising of Women Workers

A. Waged work = Freedom?

Entering the job market did not necessarily mean freedom for women. Sexual division of
labor means that most women’s jobs were not valued. On average, women received half the
salary men did. The workplace’s hierarchy was structured along gender lines and women did
6
“Statistics of Women At Work,” 42.
7
“1920 Census: Volume 4. Population, Occupations” (U.S. Census Bureau, 1920), 34,
https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1920/volume-4/41084484v4ch02.pdf.
8
DuBois and Dumenil, Through Women’s Eyes, 408.
9
“Statistics of Women At Work,” 32.
10
“1920 Census: Volume 4. Population, Occupations,” 42.
11
DuBois and Dumenil, Through Women’s Eyes, 409.
12
DuBois and Dumenil, 409.

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 Anaïs Le Fèvre-Berthelot American Women in the 20th century

not have much perspective of professional mobility. Their status as wage-earning workers was
often seen as temporary or incidental.
Yet, some young women were empowered by their new professional opportunities and by
the changes brought about by urbanization. Historian Jean Matthews writes, “The
establishment of great department stores by the 1870s created a new pleasurable public space
that was largely female, and the development of public transport […] enabled women to travel
into and around town by themselves. By the late 1880s, major city streets were lit at night,
making them safer and more comfortable for women.” 13 Urban working girls were able to
save some of their earnings and go to fairs or shows.
The Progressive Era was also that of the “New Woman.” This phrase was used in early 20 th
century discourses to refer to dynamic educated professionals (lawyers, journalists,
doctors…), upper and middle-class women living in urban areas who sought pleasure and
autonomy.

B. Women and Labor Unions

For a greater number of women, paid labor generally meant some struggles. Labor unions
began forming in the mid-19th century in the USA. But the established trade unions, such as
the American Federation of Labor (AFL, founded in 1886), were dominated by men and
offered little to no support to working women. Indeed, they mostly saw women as unfair
competitors that might steal their members’ jobs.
So women organized and, in 1903, they founded the Women’s Trade Union League
(WTUL), an organization that was opened to all white women who supported the labor
organization of women, including “allies” who came from the settlement house movement.
The WTUL supported several strikes in the early 20 th century. The League also supported
legislative reform, such as the eight-hour day, minimum wage and protective legislative for
women and children. [Visual Analysis #2]

C. The New York Shirtwaist Strike of 1909

Among the most famous strikes of the early 20 th century is the “Uprising of 20,000” that
started in 1909. The strike was launched by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union
(ILGWU). The workforce in this industry was predominantly female; many workers were
young Jewish and Italian immigrants. Among the Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland,
many had been part of unions in their home countries. The association helped workers from
the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory who protested against low wages and bad working conditions.
The picketers were harassed and arrested by police. They turned to the WTUL and leisure-
class women joined the picket line. On November 22, 1909, Clara Lemlich, a member of the
local chapter of the ILGWU gave a rousing speech in Yiddish in front of thousands of
workers, calling them to go on a general strike. In the following days, between 20,000 and
30,000 workers were on strike. The strike was settled in February 1910 when some of the
workers’ demands were met (shorter hours, better pay) but the manufacturers refused to let
the ILGWU represent workers in future negotiations.
On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out in the building of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company.
As was customary at the time, the managers had locked the doors of the factory to make sure
workers did not steal anything or leave early. 146 workers, more than a quarter of the
factory’s employees, died. [Document #10 + Visual Analysis #2]
More strikes took place in the 1910s. Women had shown that they were able to fight their
own battles. “By the beginning of World War I, the number of women in trade unions had
13
Jean V. Matthews, The Rise of the New Woman: The Women’s Movement in America, 1875-1930 (Chicago:
Ivan R. Dee, 2004), 8.

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 Anaïs Le Fèvre-Berthelot American Women in the 20th century

quadrupled, [but] women remained a minority in the labor movement and had many obstacles
to overcome.”14

III. Mother Jones and Mother Earth

A. Mother Jones

Mary Harris Jones was in her thirties when she began working as a labor organizer in the
early 1870s after the death of her husband and children and the loss of her Chicago dress
shop. Seeing the labor movement as her family, she became “Mother Jones” at the turn of the
century, a self-proclaimed “hell-raiser” who organized laborers. In the 1890s, she was an
organizer for the United Mine Workers. Not only did she contribute to attracting 300,000 men
into the union, she also organized their wives who started to fight alongside their husbands. 15
A staunch advocate of protective legislation for children, she organized children who were
working in mills and mines in Pennsylvania to participate in a “Children’s Crusade.” This
“march of the mill children” was meant to reach President Roosevelt’s summer home and put
the issue of child labor at the forefront of the public debate. In her autobiography, she wrote
about this event:
We marched down to Oyster Bay but the president refused to see us and he would
not answer my letters. But our march had done its work. We had drawn the attention of
the nation to the crime of child labor. And while the strike of the textile workers in
Kensington was lost and the children driven back to work, not long afterward the
Pennsylvania legislature passed a child labor law that sent thousands of children home
from the mills, and kept thousands of others from entering the factory until they were
fourteen years of age.16
Mother Jones did not support woman’s suffrage, because she thought suffrage was a
bourgeois issue, disconnected from the problems of the working-class. Mother Jones was
arrested and sent to jail several times as she supported workers in their struggles. Her words
remain famous: “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

B. Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman was born in Russia in a poor Jewish family in 1869 and emigrated with
her sister Helena to the United States in 1885, she was 16. She wrote about her arrival in
America:
Helena and I stood pressed to each other, enraptured by the sight of the harbour and
the Statue of Liberty suddenly emerging from the mist. Ah, there she was, the symbol of
hope, of freedom, of opportunity! She held her torch to light the way to the free country,
the asylum for the oppressed of all lands. We, too, Helena and I, would find a place in the
generous heart of America. Our spirits were high, our eyes filled with tears.
But Emma Goldman’s American experience was not common. The execution of anarchists
following the Haymarket Square demonstration in Chicago in 1887 convinced Goldman to
become active in the anarchist cause. She divorced her husband and left for New York where
she became radical agitator and orator. She met Alexander Berkman with whom she planned
the assassination of Henry Clay Frick of the Carnegie Steel Company. After the failed
attempt, Berkman was convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison. “Arrested and tried in
1893 for urging a crowd of hungry, unemployed workers to rely on street demonstrations
14
DuBois and Dumenil, Through Women’s Eyes, 414.
15
Elliot J. Gorn, “Mother Jones: The Woman,” Mother Jones (blog), accessed January 30, 2018,
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2001/05/mother-jones-woman/.
16
Mary Harris Jones, The Autobiography of Mother Jones (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1925),
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/jones/autobiography/autobiography.html#X.

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 Anaïs Le Fèvre-Berthelot American Women in the 20th century

rather than on the electoral process to obtain relief, Goldman based her defense squarely on
the right of free speech--and lost. She spent ten months in jail.”17 From 1906 to 1917, Emma
Goldman edited Mother Earth, a monthly magazine that tackled issues such as the labor
movement, education, literature, sexual freedom and birth control. Goldman, who had worked
as a nurse and a midwife in the 1890s, defended birth control as essential to women’s sexual
and economic freedom.18 In 1917, Goldman was imprisoned for two years for having publicly
opposed conscription and the war. She was later deported to Russia and remained in exile
until her death in 1940.

Conclusion: The Progressive Era was a period of intense reform activism that lasted from
the late 1890s to the end of WWI. From the fight for suffrage to the defense of laborers,
women’s leading role in progressive reform movements contributed to a profound change in
the role of government in the United States. Liberals no longer regarded government as a
threat. Rather, they were beginning to see it as the protector of public welfare.

“1920 Census: Volume 4. Population, Occupations.” U.S. Census Bureau, 1920.

https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1920/volume-
4/41084484v4ch02.pdf.
“Birth Control Pioneer.” The Emma Goldman Papers - Berkeley Library. Accessed January
30, 2018.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/MeetEmmaGoldman/birthcontrolpioneer.html.
DuBois, Ellen Carol, and Lynn Dumenil. Through Women’s Eyes: An American History with
Documents. 4 edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015.
“Emma Goldman and Free Speech.” The Emma Goldman Papers - Berkeley Library.
Accessed January 30, 2018.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/MeetEmmaGoldman/emmagoldmanandfreespee
ch.html.
Golding, Claudia. “The Work and Wages of Single Women, 1870 to 1920.” The Journal of
Economic History 40, no. 1 (March 1980): 81–88.
http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/dpaterson/econ532/07labor/goldin3.pdf.
Gorn, Elliot J. “Mother Jones: The Woman.” Mother Jones, June 2001.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2001/05/mother-jones-woman/.
Jones, Mary Harris. The Autobiography of Mother Jones. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr &
Company, 1925.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/jones/autobiography/autobiography.html#X.
Matthews, Jean V. The Rise of the New Woman: The Women’s Movement in America, 1875-
1930. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004.
“Statistics of Women At Work.” US Census Bureau, 1900.
https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/00779830ch1.pdf.

17
“Emma Goldman and Free Speech,” The Emma Goldman Papers - Berkeley Library, accessed January 30,
2018, http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/MeetEmmaGoldman/emmagoldmanandfreespeech.html.
18
“Birth Control Pioneer,” The Emma Goldman Papers - Berkeley Library, accessed January 30, 2018,
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/MeetEmmaGoldman/birthcontrolpioneer.html.