Working Women and Socialist Politics in France, 1880-1914: A Regional Study

by Patricia Hilden

Overview

This enlightening study of the relations between the Marxist wing of the French socialist movement and a substantial female industrial proletariat reveals the failure of the Socialists to assimilate an important potential constituency. Hilden examines the early development of French socialism and recreates the atmosphere of everyday life for textile workers in Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing around the turn of the century. She shows that these women demonstrated more political militance in the face of their worsening industrial situation and their exclusion from organized labor resistance than has previously been suggested.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198219354
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/10/1986
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.75(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

Emory University

Table of Contents

	Abbreviations	x
	Introduction	1
1	Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing in the belle epoque	9
2	La Vie intime	33
3	The Textile Mills	65
4	Women Workers, the Textile Unions, and Mass Protest, 1880-1914	123
5	Women in Guesdist Politics, 1880-1897	170
6	Women and Socialism, 1897-1914	224
	Conclusion	267
Appendix	Marriage and Waged Work, the Debate	278
	Bibliography	280
	Index	301

Editorial Reviews

"Ambitious, contentious, and deserving of wide circulation...Makes a provocative contribution to French history and to the study of gender politics."—French Politics and Society

"[An] outstanding study of the women textile workers of Lille, Tourcoing, and Roubaix in the decades leading up to World War I...Analyzes so many of the problems fundamental to both women's studies and socialism so clearly and forcefully that it deserves a very wide readership indeed."—Contemporary Sociology

"Hilden's carefully researched study is particularly welcome...[She] has sharpened our understanding of the difficulties women faced within the socialist movement as male leaders progressively marginalized them in trying to establish a constituency among male workes in the Nord...An important contribution to the study of women and the European left."—Journal of European Economic History

"A pioneering achievement. It should be used in many social and women's history seminars."—Journal of Modern History

"Hilden unites a sophisticated political analysis with the best techniques of the new social history."—CHOICE

"Hilden's conclusions are interesting and challenging...[A] well-researched, well-argued study."—American Historical Review

From the Publisher