Circumstances grew especially grim for farm workers toward the end of the 1800s when the number of unemployed men was on the rise. One result was that it grew harder for women to find work in the fields; another was that the income earned by women in rural industries (for example, dairying, glovemaking, or plaiting straw) became vital to family survival.
While there was little industry in southwest England, life there was nevertheless affected by inventions and developments in the nation. The early 1800s had witnessed the growth of mass transportation. With villages more readily accessible to one another, trade within the nation boomed. Railways transported goods in a matter of hours instead of days. For many country dwellers, this meant an increase in commerce and trade. The dairy industry grew rapidly because fresh milk was now able to survive a quick daily journey to towns hundreds of miles away. In Hardy's novel, Tess finds plenty of work on a dairy farm although her own village suffers an agricultural slump; this seeming contradiction is explained by the boom in transportation.
Other industrial developments affected rural life as well. There is an episode in the novel that involves Tess's employment at a steam threshing machine, which causes her suffering.
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