Labor in the Industrial Age

Abstract

Having contextualized the historical sexual exploitation of enslaved Black women in the agricultural era, we now turn our attentions forward, toward a second watershed moment in Black women’s reproductive history—reproductive policies of the industrial era, specifically between 1929 and 1954. As the slave era enters its last generations, industrialization begins to take hold of the nation and to show itself in innumerable ways. According to Giddens these changes were

Symbolized by the humming New England textile mills, northern industrialization was reaching new heights in this period. The consequent broader flow of capital created a new middle class striving for upper-class status.¹