Factory Girls - The Working Lives of Women & Children

Factory Girls - The Working Lives of Women & Children written by Paul Chrystal

and published by Pen & Sword Books - £25 - Hardback - Pages 272

Ever since there have been factories, women and children have, more often than not, worked in

those factories. What is perhaps less well known is that women also worked underground in coal

mines and overground scaling the inside of chimneys. Young children were also put to work in

factories and coalmines; they were deployed inside chimneys, often half-starved so that they

could shin up ever-narrower flues.

This book charts the unhappy but aspirational story of women and children at work through the Industrial Revolution to 1914. Without women, there would have been no pre-industrial cottage industries, without women the Industrial Revolution would not have been nearly as industrial and nowhere near as revolutionary.

Many women, and children, were obliged to take up work in the mills and factories – long hours, dangerous, often toxic conditions, monotony, bullying, abuse and miserly pay were the usual hallmarks of a day’s work – before they headed homeward to their other job: keeping home and family together.

This long overdue and much-needed book also covers the social reformers, the role of feminism and activism and the various Factory Acts and trade unionism.

We examine how women and children suffered chronic occupational diseases and disabling industrial injuries – life changing and life-shortening – and often a one-way ticket to the workhouse. The book concludes with a survey of the art, literature and music which formed the soundtrack for the factory girl and the climbing boys.

My word what a fantastic book about the history of women and children in the workplace really from the early civilisation times. Some of the conditions and standards in which both women and children had to work in were just crazy and disgusting, it beggars belief more weren’t killed on a regular basis. Especially children who were often forced into small, cramped and very dangerous positions often to eek out the minoucha of what was possible. I really enjoyed this book and I’ve learnt a lot as the author Paul Chrystal has written a very detailed and comprehensive account. I would say this book is fantastic and a must for anyone who wants to learn more about women or children in the workplace. I’m really looking forward to the second book in this pairing, and hope I get a chance to review it.