Women of the Mines: Inside and Outside

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Women of the Mines: Inside and Outside

Connie Lozada

International High School

Paterson, NJ

2008 NEH Seminar for School Teachers

Interpretations of the Industrial revolution in Britain

My travels through England made it very difficult for me to decide what to write my seminar paper on. I wanted to conduct my research on many different topics because they were all so fascinating to me. However, one place spoke to me the most. While visiting the coal mines and the lead mine at Killhope it struck me how little women are mentioned at these sites. If women were mentioned it was in the most obvious way, in the kitchen or at home with children. I began to wonder where are the women of the mines? What specific role did they play?

Women are absent from these coal and lead museums. At the coal mining museum there was a presence of women, but only in the kitchen. The exhibit was of a woman’s kitchen and what was in her kitchen and what her duties were as the wife of a coal miner. Killhope made no mention of women in lead mines at all. So where are the women and what are they doing besides cooking in the kitchen? As I did my research and re-read my seminar readings I found that most books have the same idea of what women did during the Industrial Revolution. They are wives with children and must tend to both the children and their hard working husbands. If a woman were to seek work it was of a domestic nature or within a textile factory. Tilly and Scott only mention that the wife of a coal miner stayed home and that she did her household chores around the schedule of her husband. Furthermore, if a woman had both a husband and a son working in the mines she could very well be doing her household duties in two separate shifts. Daughters also helped out at home once they were of age. Even a reality show Coal House on the BBC that puts families in the shoes of a coal mining family depicts the mother as a stay at home mother with small children and if she had to earn more money for the family she could sell back goods or work from home doing some domestic work like weaving.

According to the Royal Commission Report of 1842, women were working in the coal pits doing such jobs as drawer and wagoner. The age ranges for these women were anywhere from 18 to 37. Most of these women were recruited to work for their husbands as drawers. She could be up as early as 4 a.m. getting herself and her husband’s supplies ready for work. They would leave at 5 a.m. and not return till sometime after 7 p.m. when she had to continue to do work at home for tomorrows work day and anything else that needed to be done in the home and for the children if they had any. In the report women claimed to have worked up until 9 months pregnant and to the very day she gave birth. Her maternity leave was only 10 days before a woman had to return to work. Some claim to return within a few days. Many of these women’s children died at a young age, mostly to disease and neglect. Women were often injured in the mine by either falling debris or accidents involving the wagons. Some had deformities due to the uncomfortable positions they had to be in to perform their jobs. Women are often portrayed as wearing men’s clothing in illustrations, but sometimes they wore no clothes at all further demoralizing them. Men often treated these women poorly. Some had sexual affairs producing what one women called them “bastards”. Her husband often beat a woman if she was late or did not do the job properly. Other women were beaten for talking filthy to one another. The overall conditions and standards of the coal mine for women were very poor.

The women of the lead miners lived differently. Take the case of Killhope, the miners there were mostly men. Killhope is so far away from most towns that the men could not travel to work on a daily basis and so they stated at the mine shop during their workweek, only traveling home on days off. This meant that women had to become head of the household. Most lead miner’s wives were forced to work for many reasons. Men who lived at the mine shop had to pay to stay there as well as have their own food for the time they spend there and maintain their tools at the mine. At times a miner would not receive pay because he may owe the mine owner for his stay at the mine shop and the maintenance of his tools therefore, surrendering his pay to his employer. A lead miner’s wife had to find other sources of income because of this problem. This is not to forget that because he didn’t come home on a regular basis she had to be able to provide for her family on a daily basis financially and physically. These women obtained jobs in factories, other mines near home if any, or doing domestic duties such as cleaning house or tending to someone else’s children. Some of the lead miners who did live nearby lived on farms. Traditionally the males tended to the farm and animals and the females handled small farm animals and household duties. Those traditions had ceased. She is now in charge of everything and essentially holds two jobs. She now has to take care of animals and crops if any, but also feed and clothe all members of the family.

It’s amazing how much information there is about women in this time period. At the same time it amazes me how little information there is to provide us with the daily lives of such incredible women. The museums of the miners that I visited in England disappoint me in that they too provided little information about these women who had provided a service for them and made up an important part of their workforce. One could ask why did they leave these women out? I suppose that part of that answer is because most of the history is written by men or at the very least the records are kept by men who at that time didn’t regard women as being an important part of the mining workforce.

As I return back to my classroom this fall, I will come into my class with a new found respect for the women of the Industrial Revolution, as well as more life stories to provide them with. Most importantly I will teach them of the forgotten women of the mines and miner husbands.

Works Cited

Ashton, T.S. The Industrial Revolution: 1760-1830. 1948. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Tilley, Louise A. and Joan W. Scott. Women, Work, and Family. 1978. New York: Routledge, 1987.

Berg, Maxine. The Age of Manufacturers, 1700-1820: Industry, innovation, and work in Britain. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Forbes, Ian. Lead and Life at Killhope. Hillprint Media

Carr, Griselda. Pit Women: Coal Communities in Northern England in the Early Twentieth Century. The Merril Press Limited, 2002.

Benson, John and Neville, Robert. Studies in the Yorkshire Coal Industry. Scholar's Bookshelf, 1976.

Winstanley, Ian. The Royal Commission Report 1842. Lancanshire: Picks Publishing, 1998.

Pictures and Illustrations

Washed and Clean the Miner gets his Breakfast:

Women and the Pits

THE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN AT THE PIT MOUTHS - BREAKFAST TIME
The GRAPHIC, c. 1880

This illustration shows a woman dressed in men’s clothing as many women did. Reports state that most knew these were women by the jewelry they wore. Here you can see that the mine she is in is very steep and requires her to use the rope to help her bring up the coal.