What was the Wages for Housework Movement?

Three Quilts, from Inspiration to Finished Quilts, and the History We Learned along the Way

Three of the quilts in my current solo show have a common inspiration, the Wages for Housework Campaign.  Since this is a little known movement from history, I thought I’d write this post to share some background information about it.  My current show is called Clocking in for Unpaid Labor, and it’s at Art Reach of Mid Michigan, in Mt. Pleasant, MI.

What was the Wages for Housework Campaign?

By chance, and by Instagram, I found out that the U.K. had a campaign in the 1970s for women, mothers and all who do Housework to be paid for it.  The movement was called the Wages for Housework Campaign.  I was amazed that I’d never heard of it.

I first heard about it when an artist posted a photo of a newsletter from the U.K. campaign, which included some slogans, on protest signs in photos, or in the text of the newsletter, and I loved those slogans, so I put them on quilts. 

As I finished up the three quilts, Thank Us with Money, We Want Love and Money, Thank You Very Much, and We Can’t Afford to Live on Love, I decided I should learn more about this U.K. thing, this Wages for Housework, so I ordered a copy of the only book on the subject, fittingly called, Wages for Housework, by Louise Toupin.  The cover art made it look like a book from the 1970s, so I was surprised that it was published in 2014.

Here’s where it gets crazy – Wages for Housework wasn’t just a U.K. thing, it was an international feminist movement that also included the United States, Italy, Canada!  I know my feminist movements, I listened to Free to Be You and Me stories as a child, I took Women’s Studies classes in college, and yet, I’d never, ever heard of this movement that lasted from 1972 to 1979.  Its leaders published articles and newspapers on the subject, the movement had philosophical underpinnings, the groups had multiple international symposia.

And then it almost completely disappeared from history.  Before we get to the why of that, I should tell you what the women activists of the Wages for Housework Campaign wanted.  Actually, it’s right there in the name.  They wanted Houseworkers to be paid for caring for people and houses.  They believed that the work would never be valued by society at large, unless it was paid.  Who did they want to do the paying?  The governments of the world.

Not women, not “housewives,” but Houseworkers, who were people of either* gender who were doing the housework and the care work.  (At the time, they would have said either gender, today we would say any gender.)

Here we are, more than 50 years later, and housework is still unpaid and still not valued.  Perhaps this means they were right.

The Wages for Housework campaigners lost.  Who won?  The other side, philosophically, of the feminist movement – they said, the path to equality is in the workforce, we need to get away from the house and into waged work.  The problem is – someone still has to do the housework, and the care work.  And what has happened is often one of two things – either the housework is shifted to another woman, often an immigrant, who may or may not be paid fairly, or the woman with the full time job continues to carry the majority of the housework.

Because the Wages for Housework side “lost,” no one wrote their history (until much later).  Luckily, one of the members had a strong sense of history and donated the entire archives of her local organization to an archive. 

And of course, many of the activists are alive, this is after all, recent history.  And author Louise Toupin interviewed them for the book.  (This interviews are also published separately, as their own publications, if you want to read the originals, my library even has them, in digital form.)

As I read the book, I was stunned, over and over, that these women back in the 70s worked so tirelessly to solve this problem – of getting Housework and Houseworkers to be valued and paid – and we’re still dealing with so many of the exact same issues, all these decades later!

There’s a brand new book out on the subject, also called Wages for Housework, this one is by Emily Callaci and the subtitle is The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor.  It’s a bit exhausting, and discouraging, to have to keep fighting the same fights, over and over again, but on the upside, at least now I know about the philosophers and activists who have already figured so much out around this issue.  We can learn from them, and build on their work.

The Making of the Love & Money Quilts

On to the artwork!  Collectively, I think of these as the Love & Money quilts. The text came from the newspaper pictured above.  Lauren was doing research with primary sources and posted this photo.  This is how I found out about Wages for Housework, which I originally thought was only a thing in the U.K.

To make these quilts, I built symbolism into virtually every scrap of fabric. Let’s start with We Can’t Afford to Live on Love, or my nickname for it, The Cat Food One.  You know the idea that older women might end up so poor in American that they have to eat cat food?  I knew I wanted to use cans of cat food in this quilt somehow.  The two primary fabrics in this quilt are from designers on Spoonflower.  The cat food fabric was perfect, and then I went looking for a money fabric that coordinated with it.  I don’t know if you’ve ever had an urgent need for fabric with cans of cat food on it, but let me tell you, this is not a common item.  Thank goodness for sublimation dyeing of fabric and the many designers who make designs for Spoonflower.

I made a single 9-patch block, but blew it up to a huge scale.  To make the words, I printed on fabric using cyanotype.  The scrappy boarder is made of pieces an unknown woman cut out to make a double wedding ring quilt, but then she never made it.  A friend’s neighbor gave her a bag of quilt blocks and scraps, and my friend gave it to me.

That kind of thing – handwork done by an unknown woman – is a theme that shows up in my work again and again.  Women’s labor is infused into my art, mine that that of other women.

I later found I’d left a bit off of the quote, the original was “We can’t afford to live on love alone.”

If you’re looking at that photo and wondering if the quilt is hanging a little funny, if the edges aren’t straight – you’re right, sorta.  I chose to not square this one up.  I went with the shape that it was, as finished.  I followed the edges of those little scraps as I trimmed away the excess batting and backing, before adding the binding.

For Thank Us with Money, I ordered individual letters that were laser cut.  Each fabric in the quilt is symbolic of some kind of housework or care work, including laundry, ironing, kin keeping, cooking, serving milk and cookies after school, and of course, money.  There are two types of money fabrics, one with just American money (which oddly, at Joann Fabrics, was in the sports section of fabric – for sports betting?) and one with international monies.  I chose that one because it’s a gorgeous fabric and for variety, but how appropriate, since it turns out that the Campaign for Wages for Housework was international!

We Want Love and Money, Thank You Very Much, was the hardest to make, in a way, because it uses traditional quilt making techniques to make these pieced hearts.  Normally, I’m an improv quilter, I don’t follow patterns, and I make it up as I go along.  Getting these hearts to look like hearts and have the points match up – ug! – was difficult.  I made more heart blocks than the ones you see here, but some of them were rejected.  You’ll notice this quilt is a bit smaller than the others.  The goal size for each of these quilts was 40” x 60”, because I show I was in a few years ago, of all protest banners, the organizers said that was a standard size for protest posters.  I made a quilt for that show, so I figured, keep the quilts in this series all about that size.

As it turned out, some of the pieces wanted to be a bit bigger, some wanted to be a bit smaller.

The text for this one, I made using Jacquard SolarFast Dye, a light reactive dye product that you use in a similar way to how you use cyanotypes, making photograms using the sun, or a UV Lightbox.  It turns out buying individual, laser cut letters is kind of pricey, so I switched to a method where I could add the text myself, without cutting out and sewing down individual letters.  Also, it’s a bit nerve-wracking ironing down letters to an otherwise completely finished quilt!

Two More Quilts – “Lifting Up Women” and “What if Aprons…”

These two are not in the Love & Money series, but they are adjacent.  Lifting Up Women is made of vintage, found blocks made of men’s shirting, and a cyanotype print of a quote by Doug Emhoff, our former Second Gentleman.  He chose to step back from his career as a lawyer to support his wife’s political career.  His wife is of course, Kamala Harris.  The quote is, “Lifting up women so that they can take on important roles is a very manly thing to do.”  I came across that on social media and it kind of floored me.  I’d never heard anyone say that before.  Naturally, I put it on a quilt.

What if Aprons… includes a time card in the pocket of the apron and it has a quote on it from artist Michelle Hiskey, who wrote, “What if aprons had pockets for paychecks and 401(K) matches?”  She wrote this on a time card that she contributed to my public participation art project, Clocking in for Unpaid Labor.

I love this so much that I asked her permission to use her quote in art.  I’ve made a SolarFast print of it on a vintage linen, and in this quilt, which uses a vintage apron, made in a home ec class, probably in the 1960s to 1970s, by a girl about 11 years old.

Oddly enough, I collect those aprons.  I found one at a thrift store in Minnesota, when I was way up north at the Grand Marais Art Colony for a residency.  It was gingham.  Then, months later, I was at a favorite local thrift store, and I found another one, exactly like it!  Both were in pristine shape, as if they were made, and then never used.  Both were strangely similar, as if made from the same pattern.

I posted in some groups I’m in, to ask if people knew about these, and someone said, “I made one of those, it’s a home ec assignment.”  It was an apron you would make without a pattern, using just your own measurements.  It may have been the “One Yard Use it All Pattern,” you can find a version of that today on the blog of Erica Mulvenna.  I may make one someday, using my own custom fabric that I have printed at Spoonflower.  You can find the instructions and cutting diagram on her blog, Sewsitall.

Making the What if Aprons… Quilt

Back to the What if Aprons quilt – one of my goals as an artist is to, as much as possible, create my own materials that I work with – so if I’m doing collage, I want to use papers that I’ve painted, or fabric that I’ve shibori dyed.  This way, my work is more original, and more my own.

For this quilt, I set out of find fabric that had paychecks on it.  Doesn’t exist, so I had to make my own.  I bought vintage checks in fun colors, scanned them, and then, with technical assistance from Becka Rahn, turned that into fabric that was printed by Spoonflower, a company that does printing on demand of fabrics.  (Often called POD or digital printing.)  The fabric is just like fabric printed in other ways, it washes up beautifully.

This quilt is a whole cloth quilt, using that fabric with vintage checks on it, and then the vintage apron, made by an unknown girl, which I laboriously hand stitched down.  The way this is made, it can never be folded or rolled up for storage, so I’ll have to store it hanging up on a wall.

Bonus bit of information – The large scale cross stitch that you often find on these home ec aprons is called “chicken scratch.”  This one has more elaborate embroidery than is usual on these aprons.  I think this maker definitely got an A on her apron.

In the pocket of the apron is a fabric time card, also one of my design made, made with technical assistance from Becka Rahn.  (The design of time cards is copyrighted, so I needed my own version.)  The time card has the quote from Michelle Hiskey, used with her permission.

This question, “What if aprons came with pockets for paychecks and 401(K) matches?” speaks volumes – about the financial sacrifices women and mothers make, that often leave them in a state of precarity in their elder years, and/or working into their 70s.  And greater financial security and equitable treatment for mothers and Houseworkers didn’t start with Wages for Housework.  Campaigns for “Mother’s Pensions” go back to the 1800s.  Those did exist, in the U.K. and some U.S states, for a bit.

Want to know more about Wages for Housework?

There’s a documentary on YouTube, made in 1976, and the two books, both called Wages for Housework.  I’ve read the 2014 Louise Toubin book but haven’t read the Emily Callaci book yet.

You won’t learn about it in this book, I’m pretty sure:

It’s an otherwise comprehensive book, well researched, and it does end at 1973, while Wages for Housework only started in 1972.  I mention this only as an example of the “still forgotten-ness” of the Wages for Housework movement.  (I haven’t read the whole book yet, so apologies if I’m wrong.)

Present Day Activism

Present day movements are still carrying on this work, in a way.  Moms First is a not for profit advocating for “affordable child care, paid family leave and equal pay for moms” in the U.S.  They’re raising awareness about how child care is more expensive than rent in every state in the U.S., and that the average annual cost for childcare for two kids is $48,000.00.  That’s nuts.

In the U.K., Pregnant, then Screwed, is working for rights for pregnant women.  Their website says, “Pregnant Then Screwed is the leading charity working to end the motherhood penalty. Founded on International Women’s Day in 2015, our work is rooted in lived experience and delivered with fearless conviction. We campaign for change, provide support and advice, and build community with working parents across the UK. We do this with rigour, rage, and love.“

The personal is still political.