04.12.2006
Women working in the 1890s faced many of the problems that are familiar today: equal pay for equal work, the glass ceiling, and how to find affordable clothes that present a professional image. This is according to new research presented at a meeting of the Economic History Society by Dr Clare Rose, who recently gained her PhD from the University of Brighton.
Image © The National Archives |
These problems were particularly acute for the thousands of women taken on in office jobs after 1880. The introduction of the typewriter saw the numbers of women working in offices expand from 12,000 in 1880 to 173,000 by 1911.
Fear of 'immorality' in mixed offices meant women were given separate rooms and entrances and male workers were not allowed to see them. Conveniently this also made it harder for women to compare their work and pay with that of men: a male clerk would expect to take home £150 a year, a female clerk £30-40 a year for doing the same job.
Even so women faced distrust and hostility from male supervisors and colleagues. They needed to dress in a way that showed they were prepared to work; respectable; but still feminine. The fact that they were all young and unmarried added to the stress on their appearance.
The problem of what to wear in the office was solved by the development of business suits for women. These were made in factories in Manchester and London, advertised in national press campaigns, and sold by mail-order.
Manufacturers saw these 'new women' as a new market and targeted them with all sorts of products, either newly designed or re-packaged for wider appeal. Products aimed at women office workers included mail-order suits, skirts and blouses; smart collars and cuffs; corsets that were supportive but comfortable; safety pins to hold outfits together.
Thousands of documents featuring these products were found in The National Archives, in the archive of copyrighted advertising and packaging material. The fact that so many posters and labels for women's suits and collars were being copyrighted shows that there was money to be made from them.
Dr Rose said: "We tend to think of women entering paid work as a fairly modern phenomenon, starting in the 1920s, but this research shows that women have been instrumental in defining commercial society from the 1890s."
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