III.

American Working Women

Much of colonial America was agrarian, and most women worked the land alongside men. Even after the American Revolution, many women continued to make economic contributions by farming and tending domestic animals.

By the early 19th century the factory system had spread to the U.S. The first cotton factory was built in 1814, and by 1850 some 24 percent of manufacturing workers were women. They produced clothing, shoes, cigars, and other items. In the Northeast, newly arrived immigrant women with little education or command of the English language became the permanent factory force. In the South, black women moved into factory and domestic jobs, first as slaves and later as free workers. A home-work system, similar to the putting-out system, kept many women employed in home manufacturing enterprises for meager pay.

By 1890 nearly 4 million women in the U.S. worked for pay. This represented 18 percent of the female population aged 14 and over and 17 percent of the total workforce. Half the female workers were under 25 years of age, and seven out of ten were single. The majority worked in domestic service, teaching positions, and textile factories; only about 5 percent were secretaries, clerks, or salespersons.

A.

White-Collar Employment

The early 1900s were marked by a striking change in the growth and composition of the white-collar workforce in the U.S. As a result of urbanization and the availability of public education, more middle-class women joined the labor force, primarily as teachers and nurses. With the growing use of the typewriter in business, women filled more than 75 percent of typist jobs by 1900. At the same time, 29 percent of telephone and telegraph workers were women. Like the majority of all women in the workforce, female white-collar workers were young, single (teachers were required to quit when they married), and paid less than male workers, but they were also native-born and educated. This concentration of women in low-paying white-collar jobs has persisted throughout the 20th century.

B.

Legislation

Two types of legislation have directly affected women workers in the U.S.: protective legislation and antidiscrimination, or equal opportunity, legislation. Protective laws were developed in the early industrial era to guard women and children from exploitation by limiting the number of hours and shifts they could work, the weights they were required to lift, and the minimum wage they could be paid. See also Child Labor.

Massachusetts established a commission in 1912 to determine minimum-wage schedules for women and children. In 1938 the federal government passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, setting maximum working hours and minimum wages for persons engaged in or producing goods for interstate commerce. Coverage has been extended over the years, and in 1974 it was amended to include domestic employees.

In the 1960s protective legislation for women was nullified by antidiscrimination policies. Through legislation, executive orders, and judicial decisions, equal opportunity for women in employment and education became a federal goal. This goal was first expressed in the Equal Pay Act (1963), an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act, which prohibited wage discrimination, based on sex, in public or private employment. Current legislation applies to nonprofessional (wage and salary workers), professional, executive, and administrative employees.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 extended the prohibition against sex discrimination to include not only wages, but also job classification, assignment, promotion, and training. A 1978 amendment required employers to treat pregnancy in the same way as any other disability. In 1986 the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that sexual harassment of an employee violates the civil rights law. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission administers Title VII regarding sexual harassment. Various executive orders, enforced by the Labor Department, prohibited sex discrimination by companies receiving government contracts and established guidelines for employers to take affirmative action to recruit, hire, train, and promote women. Enthusiasm for such aggressive enforcement activities diminished under the conservative administration of President Ronald Reagan.

Family responsibilities are clearly related to women's equal employment opportunities. The U.S. has no federal child-care policy, but several government programs do affect child care. Six major programs, including Head Start and the Work Incentive Program, are targeted for low-income families; during the Reagan presidency, however, these programs were squeezed by increasing federal budget pressures. A tax credit for work-related child-care expenses is claimed mainly by middle- and upper-income families.