Discourses on Working Women in Dundee's Jute Industry, C
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
GENDER, SPACE AND POWER: DISCOURSES ON WORKING WOMEN IN DUNDEE'S JUTE INDUSTRY, C. 1870-1930 Emma M. Wainwright A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2002 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/12450 This item is protected by original copyright Gender, Space and Power: Discourses on Working Women in Dundee’s Jute Industry, c. 1870-1930 Emma M Wainwright Ph.D. Thesis August 2002 School of Geography and Geosciences University of St Andrews St Andrews Fife KY16 9AL Scotland ProQuest Number: 10170681 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10170681 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract This thesis explores the discourses on working women in Dundee’s jute industry c. 1870-1930. It examines how working women became knowable and visible, and some of the ways in which women negotiated the relationships of power within which they became placed. Dundee was dubbed ‘a woman’s town’ because of the central role that women played in the city’s jute industry. Although a recent range of historical scholarship has started to ask new questions about women’s identities and experiences of work, this study stresses the importance of engaging more widely with questions of geography, gender, discourse and power-knowledge. I explore how working women were observed, represented and categorised through a variety of material spaces - mills and factories, streets and homes, and through a range of conceptual spaces - economic, philanthropic and medical. The thesis focuses on the very processes and gendered discourses through which working women were made known - the practices of domination and resistance, and surveillance and control, and the different forms of knowledge production, including journalism, accountancy and philanthropy. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which divisions between work and home, and boundaries between public and private, were affirmed, reaffirmed and contested by working women and other urban actors. It is suggested that the work of Michel Foucault and a wider range of geographical and feminist theory provide us with a particularly rich and pliable set of conceptual resources with which to probe working women’s geographies and the processes of power-knowledge, in the Dundee context. I suggest that the web of , discourse that produced Dundee’s working women as objects of concern was aimed not at preventing women from working, but at scrutinising and managing every aspect of their lives. ii Declaration i) I, Emma M Wainwright, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 94,000 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. Date. JwfOS./.Ql......Signature of candidate... ii) I was admitted as a research student in October 1998 and as a candidate for the degree of Ph.D. in October 1999; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between 1998 and 2002. ...%/pSKL... Date Signature of candidate.. iii) I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of Ph.D. in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. Date..................... Signature of supervisor.................................................. A Unrestricted In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews I understand that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested on the work not being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and abstract will be published, ad that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker. Date.. ! 0 .b... S ignature of candidate.... .............................. ' iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Owen Silver Fund and the School of Geography and Geosciences, University of St Andrews, for funding this research, including financial support for archive research and reproduction, and conference attendance. I have been immensely fortunate to have had Dan Clayton as a supervisor. I would like to thank him for his continued support, enthusiasm and guidance for which I am hugely grateful. It has been due to his supervision that my research period has been a challenging, but enjoyable and rewarding experience. In addition, I would like to thank Mike Kesby for his assistance in the early stages of the project. I have been lucky in having a number of close friends and colleagues who I have shared and discussed ideas with, and to whom I have turned in moments of anxiety, and I would particularly like to thank Susan Levy, Karen Wren and Andrew Clark. I must also thank Janine Wiles for helping me think through chapter 5 and Lindsay Wilson who very patiently and kindly helped scan my many pictures. Away from the department, there are many archivists I would like to thank for their help - Richard Cullen, Iain Flett and all the staff at Dundee City Archives, Eileen Moran and the staff at the Local Studies Department at Dundee Central Library, the staff of Dundee University Archives, and Meic Pierce Owen at St Andrews - University Archives. In addition to photocopying and scanning, their immense iv knowledge of Dundee has been invaluable as I have tried to navigate through Dundee’s history and make sense of the archives. Thanks too to Eleanor Gordon for the loan of her oral histories which have been a valuable addition. Finally, thanks to my family, particularly my Dad, for their continued support throughout my long years of being a student. And thanks too to Jem Lynch for his constant encouragement and kindness over the past four years. v Contents Page List tables and figures viii List of plates ix Introduction 3 Juteopolis - ‘Dundee, the One-Industry City’ 12 Dundee - a ‘Woman’s Town’ Power-Knowledge and Discursive Archival Research 20 Parameters of Study 34 Chapter Outline 36 Chapter 1 (De)Constructing Dundee’s Industrial Landscape 39 The Dundee Year Book - Comprehending the City, its People and Places 41 Building Power - Industrial Images and Masculine Cityscapes 53 Exploring the Works - Middle Class Journals and the Discourses of Progress and Efficiency 64 Conclusions 72 Chapter 2 The Jute Works: Spaces of Production, Surveillance and Discipline 73 Mills and Factories - Designing the Spaces of Production 76 Beyond Machinery - Internal Geographies of Surveillance 89 Work - an Enclosed Disciplinary Space 99 Discipline Through Visibility 104 Conclusions 113 Chapter 3 Micro-geographies of Production, Power and Knowledge 115 Movement of People 116 Movements of Knowledge and Flows of Communication 123 Knowing the Works and the Workers 127 Directors’ Space 137 Conclusions 144 vi Chapter 4 Spacing and Gendering Resistance 147 Foucault and the Geographies of Resistance 150 Resistance Through Segregation 153 Creating and Extending Workplace Networks 159 Hidden Spaces of Communication 166 Work as ‘Free’ Space 169 Territorialisation and Performance 176 Conclusions 183 Chapter 5 Constructing ‘Types’: Identifying Working Women 185 Constructing Workplace Types 188 (Self-)Determining Types: the weaver and millworker 188 The Married Working Woman 203 Extending Geographies and Identities 206 Conclusions 217 Chapter 6 Improving the House and Constructing the ‘Home’: Working Women and the Dundee Social Union 221 The Dundee Social Union and the Philanthropic Project 225 The Place of Knowledge Production 230 Improving the House 233 Housing Experiments 234 Investigative Reports 239 Slum Housing and Bodies 249 Constructing the Home 256 Grey Lodge 256 Activities Programme 260 Conclusions 264 Chapter 7 Reforming Working Bodies: the Problem of Infant Mortality 267 Infant Mortality and Working Women 269 The Problem of Working Bodies 272 The Project of “Constant Supervision” 275 Sites and Strategies of Reform 278 House Visitations 278 Milk Depot 283 Restaurant for Nursing Mothers 289 Maternal and Child Welfare Scheme 293 Conclusions 296 Conclusions 298 Bibliography 316 vii List of Tables and Figures List of Tables 1. Jute Imports to Dundee, 1831-1911 6 2. Statistics for the Calcutta Jute Industry 10 3. Employers Wages Table for selected jobs 108 4. No.2 Preparing shed, Camperdown Works, 1860 109 5. Causes of Cuts and Bruises at Bowbridge Works, Dundee 130 6. Percentage of Married Women in the Various Production Processes 204 7. List of questions asked by DSU ‘visitors’ 240 8. Number of families living in different sized accommodation 243 9. Statistics collected by Health Visitors 280 10. “A few cases form the health visitors notebook” 282 11. Enquiries into cases of infant mortality in 1905 287 12. Findings of the 1907 Home Office Enquiry 289 13. Statistics relating to the three restaurants for nursing mothers 293 List of Figures 1. Population Growth in Dundee, 1801-1931 13 2. Structural and Machinery Changes at Thomas Bell and Sons Ltd, Dundee, 1890-1893 85 3. Examples of the four classes of block dwellings 247 4.