Karen Hausen Article

This past week I found Karen Hausen article on the sewing machine was the most interesting. The invention of the sewing machine and the impact it had on Germany's industrial and the different social classes was very interesting to me. The difference in the social classes and how the invention of the sewing machine may have changed the womens roles at home was particulary interesting. Since lower classs women now had a chance to make money at home while also caring for the children and the house was a good advantage for them and allowed them to maybe step up into the social class. Whereas the middle class women were worried because now the lower class women and families were producing basically the same thing they were and no one could tell who was who in society. They were scared that they may fall behind and drop down into the lower class. The middle class women were upset at the fact that no one could tell the different between the classes in society because all the women were making their own clothes and no one even knew they were doing it. She also points out that the women were now burdened with not only caring for the children and housework but now that their husbands knew that they could sew at home and save money theyr were expected to do all the work. So this in the end lead to many of the children learning how to sew and even help with daily housework. And the middle class women werent really saving anytime by sewing at home because they were sewing for themselves. And the major fear was that since the value of sewing was going down because everyone was doing it, it was really hard to get ahead and people were afraid that their social status was in jeporady.