“In contrast to popular conceptions of a male-dominated factory workforce, the Industrial Revolution in England was initially founded on the labor of women and children.

From the late eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century, nearly all working-class women—daughters, mothers, wives, and widows—were compelled to enter the paid labor force.

As historian Maxine Berg observes, ‘When we talk of industry in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, we are talking of a largely female workforce.’”

- John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark in “Women, Nature, and Capital in the Industrial Revolution”