Proto-industry

Near-synonym: cottage industry

It is now generally recognised that the rise of cottage industry, or proto-industry as it is now more fashionably called, played an important role in the transformation of the West European economy during the modern era.

Proto-industry allowed women family members (and sometimes children too) to engage in spinning, weaving and other menial industrial tasks within their homes, and thereby to supplement the income their husbands and fathers derived from agricultural work.