Job assignments: It was the women who wove in the cotton factory. You work with mending threads, filling bobbins and cleaning. You alone are in charge of four weaving machines at the same time.

Salary: 5 kronor/week

Working hours: 6 days/week, 12 h/day

Working conditions: In a cotton weaving mill at the end of the 19th century, you worked in an eternal noise, you might even have your hearing destroyed. But it was the dust that was most troublesome. It destroyed the lungs. Most factories were poorly ventilated, cold and drafty. In the ceilings there were also sprinkler systems that let down moisture at regular intervals, so that the threads in the fabric would hold better. The moisture landed not only on the looms and machines, but also on the textile workers, who smelled sour in their work clothes. They were therefore called “the sour buns”.

The final hour, when you had to clean your work space, you are paid less. On Saturdays, you would also work 45 minutes without pay, to clean.