Beyond the ‘bitter bread of dependence’: working women and the business of women’s dress in Dorothy Whipple’s High Wages (1930)

This essay explores the opportunities and challenges presented by the ready-made garment trade for women’s work, employment and economic independence in the Edwardian and interwar period, through a focus on the writing of a critically overlooked woman author, Dorothy Whipple (1893-1966). Going beyond the contexts of production and consumption which have often taken centre stage in histories of women’s clothing, especially in relation to elite dress and high fashion, this essay foregrounds representations of women’s work in the provincial retail sector. Historically situated at a significant juncture in the shifting relations between women’s home sewing, the private dressmaking trade and the manufactured clothing industry, Whipple’s 1930 novel High Wages documents the exploitation of young women in the textile and garment trades while also contesting the more sensationalist tropes attached to the figure of the shopgirl. Charting its protagonist’s trajectory from wage dependence to financial autonomy, the narrative can be situated within the context of interwar feminism, affirming the importance of paid employment as a remedy for the adverse effects of women’s financial dependence on men and as an outlet for women’s agency, initiative and enterprise.