1. Cottage Industry Chapter 19

2.   Cloth manufacturing moved out of towns, where guilds held tight control, to the countryside, where spinning and weaving were done in peasant cottages. Guilds prospered in towns in the 17 th & 18 th C. Crucial changes in attitudes about work and the employment of children & women as wage workers marked an industrious revolution.  Colonial markets provided ready consumers of European goods, benefiting manufacturing interests, both individuals and states. Europeans competed with each other for control over these colonial markets and adopted mercantilism to improve their economies. The Atlantic states, particularly England, France and Holland – grew wealthy and increasingly competitive with each other. KEY CONCEPTS

3.  Until the Industrial Revolution the most important industry worldwide was the textile industry, mostly wool & linen. Changes in agricultural production and the rise in population meant insufficient land and unreliable employment for peasants, who found ways to supplemented their meager incomes through textile production in what has been called the cottage industry (putting out system – domestic system) because the work occurred in the home. COTTAGE INDUSTRY Overview

4.   Merchants lent the tools of production to peasants  Looms & spinning wheels  Paid peasants by the piece rather than by the hour  Collect finished product to sell at market  Variations  Clocks, knives, housewares Cottage Industry form of capitalism (free enterprise)

5.   Merchants avoided the restriction of the guild system  Paid lower wages  Experimented with newer methods of production  Peasant experience  Rural workers lived in one-room cottages  The loom dominated the cottage  Weaving considered man’s work  Women/children helped by preparing threads  Spinsters  In Eng. women did the spinning  4-5 spinners needed to provide enough thread for a single weaver  On the continent both men & women spun Merchant Advantages

6.   Rarely harmonious  Merchants wanted to keep down wages  Often accused workers of stealing raw materials  Hard difficulty controlling laborers  During planting/harvest – substantial drop in production  Kept wages low to encourage them to produce more  Women earned ¼ of what a male weaver earned  Won right to punish for small infractions  Such as gleaning (taking what was left over) a long time tradition from working the land)  Workers (particularly women) were suspicious of the merchants Merchant/Peasant relationship

7.   The Function of the Guild  Aim was to provide a secure living for members  Limited the number of shops in any craft or trade  Restricted competition by maintain quality standards  Membership was tightly controlled  Restricted to men (many with family connections)  Must demonstrate quality by creating a masterpiece  Acted as educational institutions  Apprenticeship  Social centers and foci of group identity  Marched in communal procession with insignias displayed URBAN GUILDS

8.   Control of economy  Varied from place to place  England  National regulations over-ruled guild regulations  France  Guild and non-guild production was encouraged by the monarchy  Louis XIV’s finance minister Colbert gave guilds special privileges and monopolies to promote production of the high- quality French goods.  Colbert created a new all-female guild for seamstresses in Paris & allowed them to join the tailor’s guild  All guilds were opened to women by 1777 (in France) URBAN GUILDS

9.  Guilds found ways to incorporate new technology and methods of production, and some new guilds were formed, for example the seamstresses. Historians now say the guilds’ highpoint was the 17 th C & 18 th C, not the High Middle Ages Guilds

10.   Worked harder & restricted leisure time  Women & children unpaid laborer to paid  Households produced more goods – more income – participated in consumer econ.  Women worked long hours for very low wages  Menial and tedious task  Some minor freedom – household decision making, few items of personal luxury  Men didn’t have the title of “breadwinner” until 19 th C New Attitudes and Values for the Laborer (Industrious Revolution)

11.  refers to the transformation of household labor particularly that of women and children, toward the production for the market and being paid in wages in the cottage system. Industrious revolution