Assignment Explore the role of women in industrial relations as depicted in Elizabeth Gaskell's "North and South" and non-literary texts. Response The Industrial Revolution changed the lives of nearly everyone in Victorian Britain. It created large schisms between the old and new class structure of the day and what was expected of people in all areas of a rapidly changing society divided between the traditional agricultural South and the modern industrial North. One of the largest groups affected by this change was women. Within Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel, "North and South," we are shown several archetypal Victorian women, as well as how the battle between the traditional pastoral way of life and the new industrial one affects them. Through this we are able to explore how realistically Gaskell’s social commentary portrays the lives of both working and middle class women in relation to the Industrial Revolution. To facilitate this we will also utilise further sources from the period. The role of working class women during the Industrial Revolution is portrayed within "North and South" through the character of Bessy Higgins, the disabled mill girl who is no longer fit enough to work because of byssinosis caused by cotton “fluff” in the mills. “Little bits, as fly off fro’ the cotton fill[s] the air till it looks all fine white dust. They say it winds round the lungs, and tightens them up” (Gaskell, 1855, p96). This was a common disease for young women working in textile mills during this period. Human Resources MBA (2012) writes: “Also known by the somewhat poetic name “Monday fever” byssinosis is primarily associated with textile workers In extreme cases, the disease results in scarring of the lungs and, ultimately, death.” Ironically, through her disability Bessy has managed to achieve what most working class women of the period hoped for, “Their fundamental ambition was to secure the right not to work”, write Dutton and King (2008). This was so they could aspire to be like the women of the middle class, who they saw as perfect and care-free. We can see this through Bessy’s description of Margaret: “I wonder if there are many folk like her down South. She’s like a breath of country air, somehow. She freshens me up about a bit” (Gaskell, 1855, p130). This ideal view of the place of women being at home and not in the factory was one that was created by the social and economic demands of the period. Social reformers, such as Sarah Stickney Ellis, claimed that women who worked were responsible for the moral ruin of themselves, their children and the domestic ideal. This led to the issue of the “double burden” for working class women, who struggled with their “waged work” and “the bulk of household responsibilities," as stated by Pat Hudson (2011). Dutton and King (2008) argue this to be the reason that women were less interested in obtaining better working environments as shown by their relative lack of involvement in union activities and therefore, an underlying cause of the tragic illnesses suffered by Bessy and many like her. However, a more likely cause for their “lack of involvement in unions” (Dutton, King, 2008) was that the male-dominated nature of politics and organisation. The first women’s trade union was the Women’s Protective and Provident League, founded in 1875, twenty years after the publication of the novel, although this was a union more for skilled labour, such as dressmakers, upholsterers, and typists, rather than mill workers (Simkin, 2013). Through Bessy, Gaskell gives us our only glimpse of the working class woman, other than domestic. But by doing this does she accurately represent working class women? Within the text Gaskell depicts a strike which intensifies into a violent confrontation outside the Thornton’s home. According to Dutton and King (2008), this strike is based on real events that took place in Preston in 1854, a year before the publication of the text. They state that Gaskell’s portrayal was “more realistic” than Dickens’s Hard Times and it “draws on newspaper accounts of the events in Preston”. Throughout North and South Gaskell represents the factory workers and the strike as purely masculine; there is no mention of women being involved in work other than Bessy. This can be best seen during the male only clash between Thornton and his workers in chapter twenty-two: “Many in the crowd were mere boys; cruel and thoughtless,–cruel because they were thoughtless; some were men, gaunt as wolves, and mad for prey” (Gaskell, 1855, p165). “With shrinking eyes she had turned away from the terrible anger of these men, in any hope that ere she looked again they would have paused and r