Full bibliography

Employs a life cycle framework to analyze women's role in the Quebec cotton industry from 1910-50 with a focus on the textile mill at Valleyfield. Concludes that young women gave all of their income to their parents, that because of this circumstance women remained unmarried until fairly late, that prior to the 1940s women left the workforce after marriage, but, commencing in that decade, women would return to work after marriage, and that with technological change and the increased sexual division of labour, women were more likely to be relegated to less skillful jobs. Also comments on the reasons why women were generally less militant workers. The paper, which is part of a larger investigation, was based on 35 interviews with female cotton workers in Valleyfield, Quebec, supplemented with census data, government reports, archival sources, and newspaper accounts.