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kent1302280135.pdf (3.86 MB)
ETD Abstract Container
Abstract Header
A Woman’s “Natural” Work: Sewing and Notions of Feminine Labor in Northeast Ohio, 1900-1930
Author Info
Benoit, Colleen S.
Permalink:
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1302280135
Abstract Details
Year and Degree
2011, MA, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History.
Abstract
This thesis explores the social and cultural significance of sewing and its place in the factory, the domestic arts education movement, and the home during the rise of the garment trade between 1900 and 1930 in Northeast Ohio. Long viewed in American culture as women’s “natural” work, this study takes a more critical look at how sewing functioned in the lives of women during a time of great economic and social change in the context of the Progressive Era, push for suffrage, rise of mechanized industry, and influx of immigration. Through a historical investigation of women’s work and systems of gendered labor, this thesis examines how expectations of femininity were translated across class and racial lines but remained embedded in sewing even as it moved out of the home, into schools, and onto the factory floor. Garment industry leaders relied on this notion of sewing as women’s natural work to hire them as hand sewers and machine operators in factories, a job that drastically deskilled sewing and removed any of its traditional domestic attachments. During this same period, the domestic arts movement became a staple in girls’ education and marketed sewing as a domestic skill and duty of a good wife and mother. Such lessons did not prepare young women for work in any of the sewing trades and instead encouraged knowledge of sewing as a means of honing maternal instinct and domestic capacity. Despite these opposing contexts in which sewing was performed, women remained active negotiators in the debate over how sewing would function in their lives. Dependent on racial and class situations, women often disregarded the loaded cultural expectations of sewing and found ways to use the craft as a means of social empowerment. In conclusion, sewing cannot be accepted as a commonplace past time and when examined historically, often reveals much about the construction of gender and gender expectations.
Committee
Elizabeth Smith-Pryor, PhD (Advisor)
John Jameson, PhD (Committee Member)
Rebecca Pulju, PhD (Committee Member)
Pages
123 p.
Subject Headings
American History
;
History
;
Home Economics
;
Social Research
;
Womens Studies
Keywords
Sewing
;
garment industry
;
domestic arts education
;
women's history
;
women's work
;
social history
;
cultural history
;
Cleveland, Ohio
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Citations
Benoit, C. S. (2011).
A Woman’s “Natural” Work: Sewing and Notions of Feminine Labor in Northeast Ohio, 1900-1930
[Master's thesis, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1302280135
APA Style (7th edition)
Benoit, Colleen.
A Woman’s “Natural” Work: Sewing and Notions of Feminine Labor in Northeast Ohio, 1900-1930.
2011. Kent State University, Master's thesis.
OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center
, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1302280135.
MLA Style (8th edition)
Benoit, Colleen. "A Woman’s “Natural” Work: Sewing and Notions of Feminine Labor in Northeast Ohio, 1900-1930." Master's thesis, Kent State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1302280135
Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)
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Document number:
kent1302280135
Download Count:
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Copyright Info
© 2011, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.