De arbeid van ongehuwde vrouwen in mijnwerkers- en boerengezinnen. Een onderzoek in de Limburgse gemeenten Stein en Horst in de jaren 1950

Samenvatting

Unmarried Women’s Work in Miners’ and Peasant Families. Research in the Limburg Municipalities of Stein and Horst in the 1950s. In this article, the work of young, unmarried women in the 1950s is analyzed in the different socio-economic contexts of miners’ and peasant families in two proto- typical Limburg villages (Stein for mining and Horst for agriculture). Research is focused on the kind of work, the length of the working period, and the value attached to it by the women themselves. Originally, miners in Stein came from small landholding families, and until the 1920s women, both married and unmarried, remained involved in farm work. Later miners’ daughters found paid work in sewing workshops, retail shops, and other services. In Horst, young women’s work continued to be important on the family farm well into the 1950s. It was considered a ‘natural’ duty of female members of the peasant household, not a form of (gainful) employment, and although self-evident for contemporaries, it remained unregistered and can only indirectly be revealed in historical research.