Inscribing Gender in Rural Development: Industrial Homework in Two Midwestern Communities1

Abstract A resurgence of informal economic work, such as home-working, occurred in some rural areas during the 1970s and the 1980s. In two midwestern communities, an employer of industrial homeworkers was recruited in an effort to boost the local economy with new jobs. In these communities, ideas about women's roles in households and the labor market are crucial to the states' ability to couple industrial homeworking with rural community development. Industrial homeworking as development in the United States shows how development goals support and maintain the sexual division of labor in households and in the local labor market. Personal interviews and archival documents form the basis of the case study data. These data are content-analyzed for themes about the process of development and the relationship of the local states and industrial firms.