By Ann J. Lane (New York: Pantheon, 1980.)
Among the working-class population, single women went off to work in factories or in private homes as domestic servants; married women earned money by taking in boarders, washing the clothes of the wealthy, or doing piecework sewing at home, and in general providing substantial economic value to their homes in various forms of unpaid labor. Middle-class and upper-class women found themselves locked into their homes, rather than driven out of them. They became "hostages to their homes," in Barbara Welter's words, caretakers of home, husband, and children, the anchor upon whose "voluntary" self-sacrifice the stability of the social order came to rest. The talents and skills of these women were not permitted to share in the production of goods or services required by the society at large. Their work was to minister to their private families. Not all women suffered in these circumstances; many accepted their life and enjoyed it, not finding its restrictions oppressive or suffocating. But rigid notions of proper behavior and activity for women denied the rights of many others whose needs and desires did not fit the ideal and who were granted no alternative.