1. Industrial Revolution and the Family
Industrialization had a profound impact of the family by removing women and children from the world of work.

2. Impact on Families
In the early industrial period families work together in factories as they had did on farms and in cottages.
The father often acted as contractor for the family and parents disciplined their children
Child labor generally was welcomed by these families but opposed by reformers
Britain’s Factory Act of 1833
banned the employment of children under nine and limited the hours of older children
this ended the tradition of families working together
Long working hours – eleven a day – and exhaustion from physical work usually meant families had little time together once the Factory Act was passed.

3. Impact on Women
Originally, women were a large part of the industrial workforce and did the same work as men in mines and their smaller hands were particularly desirable in the textile factories.
Factors for gendering work
Men did not want to compete with women for jobs
the difficulties of being a mother on factory time
the intimate working conditions of men and women working together
Legislation forbidding women from working in mines was passed in 1842.

4. Married women of all classes were expected to stay out of the workforce and remain in the domestic sphere.
Initially, middle class women worked alongside their husbands as managers of factories or as merchandisers of goods, but this began to change as the industrial system become established.
When married women needed to worked it was usually in the non-industrial sector of the economy.