Women leisure and a factory’s everyday life: textile enterprises of the Yaroslavl province in the second half of the XIXth – early XXth century

Abstract

The article considers the place of leisure in the factory daily life of the female textile workers of the Yaroslavl province in the second half of the nineteenth – the beginning of the twentieth century. The research has been conducted via gender, regional and microhsitorical approaches. The authors summarize the information on the work schedule at the Russian enterprises in general and at the textile factories of the Yaroslavl province in particular. The article reveals social and economic factors which influenced the development of the textile industry as well as the workers’ labour and leisure and led to transformation of
urban and rural workers’ identity. It also considers the variety of leisure forms available to both men and women, such as background, religious and festive, cultural and educational leisure. The study raises the question of the fullness of the industrial female workers’ leisure time and traces the tendency towards the increase of its amount in the women’s everyday life. However, during the studied period the leisure time of the female textile workers in the Yaroslavl province was still determined by traditional women responsibilities and gender stereotypes.