Tea Packers, G.E. Barber Company, Saint John, circa 1900.
Women's work was generally confined to the home or farm in the pre-industrial period. With the advent of steam and electrically driven factory machinery, Maritime women came to play a particularly important role in cotton milling, confectionary trades and consumer packaging.
The women in this photo are packaging tea at the Saint John warehouse of G.E. Barbour, a firm that came to dominate aspects of the region's wholesale and forwarding trade. Women seldom advanced to skilled or supervisory positions, partly because their involvement in industry was regarded as nothing more than a prelude to marriage, but also because of direct discrimination. (Note the male supervisor.) There was considerable controversy over the social and economic implications of women on the job, but the demand for large numbers of unskilled yet disciplined and docile workers attracted many young women to temporary jobs in factories all across the country. They remained outside the normal activity of union organizers for most of the period under discussion. (See Canada's Visual History, volume 30, The Canadian Campaign for Womens' Suffrage, for a discussion of the changing role of women.)
