Women's Work: A Century of
Maine Experience
Women's Work |
Women Working for Wages |
Women Owning Businesses |
Women Working with their Husbands
Women Assisting Their
Husband's Work
 |
| Sydney Oxton and their granddaughter Alice
are packing candy into boxes for shipping from Sydney's candy business in
Rockland, ME. (Alice Knight Photo - P8224) |
Women often became
invisible when they got married. Much of their work is
unrecognized in the documentary record, though undoubtedly
much appreciated by their husbands and families.
Women who were pioneers
(and new immigrants) often helped their husbands clear land,
and cared for cattle and crops when their husbands had to
travel to find work. Women assisted husbands with haying,
milking, feeding new lambs, bookkeeping, and marketing.
Women also assisted their
husbands in lumber camps, and offered important support
services to husbands who were at sea, fishing.
"My aunt never had any
money. My uncle was the one who got the case for the produce, but he
and she were a team when it came to producing it, because they were
in that together. But she never had any actual cash until she
started working at the bean plant... Then she saved it like a
miser... And yet if ever we needed money we could borrow it form
her... I would expect that if we put it on an economy scale today,
count her house, what she did, and childcare and washings and the
cooking, I would think, really, it would be 50%. I think it was a
50/50 deal and they would consider it that. They worked hard, and
yet they were always happy and there was always time for a picnic,
even if it was just out on the lawn." [NA 1576]
Click on
Photos for more details
Additional
reading:
Groneman, Carol and Mary Beth Norton, "To Toil The Livelong
Day": America's Women at Work 1780-1980, (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1987).
How can we find out more about this
kind of women's work?
Many town directories list each member of the town and their
occupation. What other sources could be used?
Back to Exhibits
