Women Workers and Gender Identities, 1835 - 1913 examines the experiences of women workers in the cotton and small metals industries and the discourses surrounding their labour. It demonstrates how ideas of womanhood often clashed with the harsh realities of working-class life that forced women into such unfeminine trades as chain-making and brass polishing. Thus discourses constructing women as wives and mothers, or associating women’s work with distinctly feminine attributes, were often undercut and subverted. Weaving together extensive archival material with a fresh interpretation, this book includes discussion of: Theoretical approaches to the study of women in history, from patriarchy to discourse analysis Co-operation, conflict and community in the Cotton District Women’s activism alongside men in the Chartist movement, for improved conditions of labour The work of women at the forge and in pen-making factories, emphasizing its necessity and the important role it played in the culture of each of the areas The Women’s Trade Union movement