Women have played a big role through history. Often during different time periods the roles women played were given names. Two examples include the Industrial Women and the Pioneer Women. Both names give way to what area of the United States these women were located. Industrial women were located in the northeastern part of the United States while Pioneering women were in the mid-west. Although both sets of women played drastically different roles they helped shape the country we know today.
The industrial revolution sparked a new era for women. Consumer goods were now produced in factories with machinery doing most of the work. Machines cut production times in half and allowed for minimally trained workers to be hired and produced more efficiently and at a lower cost than previous skilled workers. This applied especially to the textile industry. Women became most of the minimally trained workers that were hired. With the income that industrial women were able to earn they began to move away from their families. Working and moving out on their own gave women a new found financial and independent mindset. Factory work provided a better standard of living for some women, but for the majority the result was a life of hardship.
Textile factories were where the majority of women worked. However some worked in watching making, candy production, carpet weaving and rope making. Inside the factories work conditions were often unsanitary and the work itself quiet dangerous and because of harsh work demands the education for these women suffered as well as home life. Although factories had a great deal of negatives there was a lot of good to come out of them as well. Urban center growth and increasing life expectancy are two of the biggest plusses from factory work. With family life changing because of industrial works women were having fewer children raising their life expectancy by a great deal. Although a woman entering the labor force was not intended for the new technology the good outweighed the bad and so came along the “Industrial Woman”.
As people started moving out west and settling down on land new demands came for women. Husbands would leave their wives back east to go out west and claim land to start a farm or ranch in hopes of having a better life. Once their wives and children arrived the demands put upon the woman began. The roles of a pioneer woman were to serve as wives, mothers and house