19th Century European History

¶ … German Worker: Working-Class Autobiographies from the Age of Industrialization by Alfred Kelly. Specifically it will discuss how the book portrays women's working-class lives. Women's lives were far more difficult in the Industrial Age then they are today, and this book shows just how difficult they were, and how women were manipulated by their employers. Working women still had to take care of their families, and many started working very young, leaving school to help support their families.

Working women in Germany during the Industrial Age led difficult lives. They often died early from diseases like consumption and other ailments, and they often did without necessities so their children could have food and clothing. Ottilie Baader, a seamstress, relates how her mother died when she was seven, her father hurt himself, and she, a child of seven, had to take care of her mother's body and help take care of the other children while her father recuperated. Her father worked away from home, so the children had to take care of themselves, and she only had a few years of formal schooling. She left school at the age of thirteen, and got a job as a seamstress. She writes, "There was no need for any big family council to choose the right trade for me, because there wasn't much choice for girls in those days" (Kelley 67). Women did not have a choice of careers, they were only accepted in some industries, like housekeeping and textiles, so they had to develop skills in those areas or else.

Ottilie had to train in a tailor's shop for a month with no pay, and then she received two talers a month, all of which went to the family. Her wages did rise as the quality of her work increased, in a few years she was making five talers a month. She also brought home detailed sewing work to make more money. She worked twelve hours a day, and then brought work home besides. She is not unique. During the Industrial Age, there were no labor laws like there are today, and employers worked their employees long hours, did not pay overtime, and did not give them any benefits. Later, Ottilie bought her own sewing machine and worked at home, from 6am in the morning to midnight every night, with some time out for preparing meals. It was a strenuous life, but she had to take care of her father, who could no longer work, and it was the only way she could manage to support them. This shows how difficult life was for these working women, and how their lifestyles often made them candidates for disease and disability. Sadly, Ottilie is not the exception. She writes, "There is nothing unusual about my life. Thousands of working girls of my time lived and worked just as I did" (Kelly 65). That shows that employers generally treated their employees poorly, because they could, and they worked them sometimes to their deaths.

Women employed as maids and servants did not fare any better. A young girl who worked as a cook in a Hamburg household indicates her mistreatment and abuse. Her name is Doris Viersbeck, and she writes, "I just wanted to be treated like a human being, and this right is all too often denied to servants" (Kelley 135). This poor girl worked from 6am in the morning and often did not get to bed until 1am or later, and then her employer would wake her up at 2am demanding fresh coffee. She, like Ottilie before her, stood up to her employer and said no, it was too much, but then her employer verbally abused her and took advantage of her. Once, Doris had to run an errand to the post office (well out of her realm of work, but that was common). She delivered the receipt to her employer, but she forgot, and accused Doris of stealing the money she was supposed to post. She writes, "I stood there speechless. I didn't know what was happening to me -- being accused of being a common thief! It was frightful!" (Kelley 147). Actually, the household treated Dora (their name for her) so badly that at times she thought the only way for her to escape was to kill herself, and this was probably true of many other household servants, as well. These women had no rights, they had no contracts, and they had nowhere to go if they left their employers, so they took abuse and threats, and continued working because they had so few choices in where they could earn a living.