Hausen's Homogenity

While reading Karin Hausen’s “Technical Progress and Women’s Labour in the Nineteenth Century” I particularly enjoyed her portrait and development of a Germany centered around the sewing machine. By limiting the scope of her essay she was able to paint a very detailed picture of the popular, supposedly liberating yet actually enslaving, sewing machine. When thinking of history the first thing that comes to mind are the battles, the heroes, the major conferences, treaties, etc, etc. It’s slightly humorous to see how important something as simple as an appliance can be in shaping social history. With that said, however, I do believe Karin Hausen likely exaggerates her argument regarding the sewing machine’s burdensome and enslaving nature. While it is true that an astonishing number of sewing machines are sold over the last half of the 19th century, many of them on hire purchase, Hausen leads the reader to believe that the majority of those women became slaves to their equipment. She paints an extreme picture where women in the lower classes, fearing absolutely work in the factories, are forced into the sewing machine trap and work countless hours in messy houses with annoying children with massive debts in an oversupplied Market for the rest of their existence on earth. Most examinations into social history, however, show that human experience is never that homogenous. People will not all live the same lives even if they’re under similar conditions. There are too many independent variables to lump a whole entire population of lower class women into a terrifying picture. Furthermore, while her statistics are powerful, her primary sources are mild at best. Although the lack of first hand accounts may be understandable, statistics by themselves can never paint a full story and only mask the little realities and small personal stories of thousands of individuals.