A Short Note on Women's Work in the Textile Industrial Colonies of Inland Catalonia in the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

Industrial colonies were one of the most characteristic phenomena of the industrial revolution in Catalonia. They first appeared in the 1870s, developing their own labour and social model, and eventually totalled more than 70 in number. Taking 11 cotton textile colonies as its point of reference, the aim of this paper is to analyse, based on local sources such as municipal enumerators' books and worker censuses, the labour force participation of the women who lived and worked in the Catalan textile company towns in the early twentieth century. Once the rate of female activity is calculated, the article analyses the determining factors of female participation in these labour markets and the family strategies adopted to combine productive and reproductive work. Furthermore, it also examines workforce composition and employment structure, observing the behaviours of female workers in the labour market, the occupations that women performed, and the job stability that they enjoyed.