Women and the Labour Movement in Scotland 1850-1914

This study of working women in Scotland in the period 1850-1914 focuses particularly on women working in Dundee's jute industry, integrating labour history and the history of gender. The author uncovers the patterns of their employment, their involvement in and relationship to trade unionism, and the forms of their resistance.

This is a study of working women in Scotland in the period 1850-1914. In a detailed scholarly analysis, based on a wide range of contemporary sources, Eleanor Gordon uncovers the patterns of their employment, their involvement in and relationship to trades unionism, and the forms of their workplace resistance and struggles. Focusing particularly on women working in Dundee''s jute industry, Dr Gordon''s study integrates labour history and the history of gender. It is a stimulating and thorough account, which challenges many assumptions about the organizational apathy of women workers and about the inevitable division between workplace and domestic ideologies. It makes an important contribution to current historiographical debates over the sexual division of labour, working-class consciousness, and domestic ideologies, and to the history of women in Scotland.