Languages of Labor and Gender. Female Factory Work in Germany, 1850-1914 0-8014-3123-9, 978-0-472-08766-2

Citation preview

III I·

\, l

~1

Languages of Labor and Gender

II !l

f1

[l 11

tl ll II

!ltj

II

!j

Female Factory Work in Germanyy 1850-1914 l

KATHLEEN CANNING

1:

[l ;i p

I! i'!

fi

IJ

ri

!: ~

11 li f~

Cornell university Press

Ithaca and London

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES A

To the memory of Peggy Brennan Canning (1931-68)

SUBVENTION FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN WHICH AIDED IN THE PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK.

Copyright© 1996 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 1996 by Cornell University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Canning, Kathleen, 1953Languages of labor and gender : female factory work in Germany, 1850-1914 I Kathleen Canning. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8014-3123-9 (cloth: alk. paper) l. Women employees-Germany-North Rhine-Westphalia-History-19th century. 2. Textile workers-Germany-North Rhine-WestphaliaHistory-19th century. 3. Sexual division of labor-Germany-North Rhine-Westphalia-History-19th century. I. Title. II. Title: Female factory work in Germany, 1850-1914 HD6150.N67C36 1996 33l.4'87'094355090434-dc20 96-793 Printed in the United States of America

€l The paper in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-l984.

and Edna Wollensak Brennan (1907-95)

Contents

Preface ix Introduction: German Labor History and the Meanings ofWomen's Work 1 1 Gender and Sexual Politics in the Transition from Home to Factory Industry 16 2 "The Man Transformed into a Maiden"? Feminization in the Textile Industries of the Rhineland and Westphalia 38 3 Sexual Difference and the Social Question in the Transition to the "Industrial State," 1844-1889 85 4 State, Social Body, and Public Sphere: Regulating Female Factory Labor during the 1890s 126 5 Social Policy, Body Politics: Factory Labor, Maternity, and Volks/Wrper, 1900-1914 170 6 Work Experiences, Work Identities: Dissolving the Dichotomy between Home and Work 218 7 Behind the Mill Gate: Gender and the Culture of Work 283 Conclusion Index

333

324

Preface

This inquiry into the languages of labor and gender in Imperial Germany began over a decade ago during a dismal winter in the Prussian State Library in (then) West Berlin. The long days I spent perusing the Social Democratic and Communist women's papers from the Weimar period left me with a set of unanswered questions: about the implicit audience for these papers-the female workers who seemed to figure as objects rather than subjects of the so-called Frauenzeitungen-and about the particularly German genealogies of the identities and rhetorics of class that had come to dominate working-class politics by the turn of the twentieth century. As I worked, focusing on the textile industry as a site of particular gender conflict encompassing the arenas of shop floor and union politics, I confronted the problematic disjunctures between ideological prescriptions and everyday practices, between the discourses about female factory labor and the experiences of women workers. Having skirted the "outer face" of both workplace and unions, I sought to understand the complex moments of accommodation and resistance on the "inner face" of both (to appropriate a term from Alf Ludtke). _In the meantime the theoretical and historiographical contexts in which this inquiry was launched-women's history and labor history-were recast and replenished by the "new cultural history," by the shift to gender history and the critical rethinking by scholars in both fields of the key words "experience," "agency," "discourse," and "identity." My own work of rewriting began amid this sea of change, as I set out to analyze the implications of my empirical fmdings for the tenacious category of "class," to understand the origins of the ideologies of women's work that permeated each aspect of my inquiry, and to probe the complex ways in which both structural and rhetorical transformations shaped female factory work in Germany. I pursued this quest in many academic and geographic milieus over the years, incurring many intellectual and personal debts. My list of thanks

x

Preface

Preface

begins with my teachers at Johns Hopkins lJ_niver~ity: ~ernon Lidtke, whose probing and critical questions helped giVe thts proJe~t coheren~e, grounding and life and whose counsel and support have smce been mvaluabk Mack Walker, from whom I learned more than is evident on the surface ~f this book- and Toby Ditz for her indispensable insights into Eur~pean and Ameri~an family and women's ?istory :md her incisive comments on an earlier version of this manuscnpt. Thts book also profited from the advice of many friends and colleagues: Jean Quataert, who prompted me to rethink my analysis _of ~e transit_ion from h?me to factory industry; Jane Caplan, Roger Chtckermg, Davtd Crew, Elisabeth Domansky, Laura Frader, Atina Grossmarm, Michael Hanagan, Young-Sun Hong, Isabel Hull, Patrick Joyce, Molly Nolan, J;u_nes ~etall~ck, Mary Louise Roberts, Eve Rosenhaft, Bill Sewell, and Lomse Tilly, wtth whom I discussed my work or who commented on chapter ~afts or conferen~e papers. Robert Moeller and Alf Ludtke deserve spe~1~ thanks for thetr generous reading of my work at several stages of :evtston. I also express my appreciation to my German colleagu_es: to Dons Kaufman for help~ advice and good company, and to Karm Hausen, Carola Sachse, Kann Zachmarm, and Christiane Eifert. . I am perhaps most indebted to my colleagues and ~rien~ at the Umversity of Michigan, where this book took shape, w~o msptred many o~ ~y attempts to rethink my work and whose companionship and collegtaltty made doing so less arduous. Geoff Eley's astute comments at a very early stage of this work spurred me on to tackle many of its unanswe~ed que~­ tions: both my book and I have benefited enormously from h~s candid advice and incisive readings as well as from our shared expenences as teachers, mentors, and friends. Bill Rosenberg, Maris Vinovskis, and Terry McDonald offered wise advice on various aspects of this book. Robert Picard and Francine Lafontaine provided invaluable help with the analysis and presentation of my empirical data. For camaraderie, good food, and an abundance of intellectual stimulation I thank Jane Burbank, Fred Cooper, Laura Lee Downs, Eleanor and Geoff Eley, Carol ! ......

M'

0

......

?F. 00 ...... 0

['.

a......

0>

......

0>

I

I

I

tn

.-.

tn

'CI 00

......

M

0

0 0>

......

...... ......

tn

00 00

......

......

0 tn

......

......

0>

~ ......

'CI

......

0>

0>

I

I

t.!. 0

tn

M

N

o00

......

tn

'CI 00

......

0>

......

0> 0

I

'CI 00

......

Plate 2. Female bobbin setters (spoolers) at the zanella factory of Johann Wilhelm Scheidt, Kettwig!Ruhr (ca. 1913). From a company brochure, "Johann Wilhelm Scheidt, Kettwigl Ruhr" (undated), Rheinisch-Westfilisches Wirtschaftsarchiv, Abt. 60, J. W. Scheidt, Kenwig. Photo reprinted couttesy of the Rheinisch-Westfilisches Wirtschaftsarchiv, Cologne.

...:

~

0..

bl)

.S 1