History 301
Spring 2000
Prof. Koenker

Working-Class and Proletarian Families

February 4, 2000

I. How does industrialization/proletarianization affect the family and women's roles within it?

A. Marxist theory: family as unit of reproduction

1. Primitive communism
2. Rise of private property
3. Institution of monogamy

B. Role of women in working families (Louise Tilly and Joan Scott)

1. Single women workers
2. Gender-segregation
3. Gender segmentation
4. Family needs determine work patterns

II. Is there a peculiar form of working-class family?

A. Working-class family as unit of heredity or of social survival (welfare)?
B. Example: kinshop structure in Lancashire (Michael Anderson)
C. Role of family in labor activism
D. Middle class family as unit of heredity?