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The Tale of Tessie the Textile Worker: Female Textile Workers in Cornwall During World War II

Resource type
Author/contributor
Title
The Tale of Tessie the Textile Worker: Female Textile Workers in Cornwall During World War II
Abstract
The recent historiography pertaining to women during World War II has tended to focus on women in either the war industries or armed forces. While the first feminist scholars argued that women experienced a type of second emancipation during this period due to changes in societal attitudes, more recently, historians have contended that women were temporarily treated to certain economic and social benefits during the War because the government and industries were in desperate need of workers. This paper attempts to offer an alternative interpretation of women's experiences during this time, through the investigation of female textile workers in Cornwall, Ontario. Using a dual structural analysis, this study illustrates how male union leaders and company owners often collaborated in maintaining a segregated work force. Instead of experiencing a type of liberation from traditional occupational constraints, Cornwall's female textile workers remained subjugated in lower paying and lower skilled "female" jobs in the mills. Within this industry then, continuity rather than change characterized the experiences of female textile workers during World War II.
Publication
Labour / Le Travail
Volume
33
Pages
153-186
Date
Spring 1994
Journal Abbr
Labour / Le Travail
ISSN
07003862
Short Title
The Tale of Tessie the Textile Worker
Accessed
4/29/15, 1:46 PM
Library Catalog
EBSCOhost
Citation
Scheinberg, E. (1994). The Tale of Tessie the Textile Worker: Female Textile Workers in Cornwall During World War II. Labour / Le Travail, 33, 153–186. http://www.lltjournal.ca/index.php/llt/article/view/4921