‘Elbow grease and yellow soap’ housework time in working-class households in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Britain

Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Housework is central to feminist calls for recognition of women's work, economic histories explaining the sexual division of labour, and claims regarding the progressive role of scientific knowledge. Yet little is known about the time it actually took. We address this lacuna. We utilize British sources and find a substantial increase in the hours ordinary women spent on domestic labour between the late‐eighteenth and the mid‐twentieth centuries. We note the changing imperatives of state involvement and industrial development and explore how the additional domestic labour served the interests of state and employers as well as those of husbands and children.

Keywords: domestic labour; family welfare; housework; nineteenth-century Britain; twentieth-century Britain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2026-05-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-inv
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Published in Economic History Review, 15, May, 2026. ISSN: 1468-0289

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:137939

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