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Women, work, and technology: The steam laundry industry in the United States and Great Britain, 1880-1920

Mohun, Arwen Palmer

Abstract Details

1992, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, History.
Nurtured by increasing standards of cleanliness and the growth of urban environments, between 1880 and 1940, laundries became a ubiquitous feature of cities in the United States and Great Britain. They employed large numbers of women, were a significant, if taken for granted, part of the lifestyle of the urban middle-class, and attracted the attention of reformers and union organizers. This dissertation is a comparative study of the relationship between technological, cultural, and legal changes in the laundry industry and their effects on the women who worked in the laundries, on patterns of consumption, and on the business of laundries. It crosses methodological and historiographical boundaries between labor history, gender studies, and the history of technology to argue for a revision in the current understanding of the relationship of women workers and mechanization. It also argues that the laundry industry is a product of changing cultural and urban patterns and can be used as an example that illuminates those changes.
Carroll Pursell (Advisor)
347 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Mohun, A. P. (1992). Women, work, and technology: The steam laundry industry in the United States and Great Britain, 1880-1920 [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1056135864

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Mohun, Arwen. Women, work, and technology: The steam laundry industry in the United States and Great Britain, 1880-1920. 1992. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1056135864.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Mohun, Arwen. "Women, work, and technology: The steam laundry industry in the United States and Great Britain, 1880-1920." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 1992. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1056135864

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)