Women, Work, and Protest

A Century of U.S. Women's Labor History

Ruth Milkman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138008090
• eBook ISBN: 9781136247682
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

As paid work becomes increasingly central in women's lives, the history of their labor struggles assumes more and more importance. This volume represents the best of the new feminist scholarship in twentieth-century U.S. women's labor history. Fourteen original essays illuminate the complex relationship between gender, consciousness and working-class activism, and deepen historical understanding of the contradictory legacy of trade unionism for women workers. The contributors take up a wide range of specific subjects, and write from diverse theoretical perspectives. Some of the essays are case studies of women's participation in individual unions, organizing efforts, or strikes; others examine broader themes in women's labor history, focusing on a specific time period; and still others explore the situation of particular categories of women workers over a longer time span.

This collection extends the scope of current research and interpretation in women's labor history, both conceptually and in terms of periodization – emphasis is placed on the post-World War I period where the literature is sparse. This book will be valuable for scholars, students and general readers alike.

Index

accident rates, 60

activists, women labor: ages of, 50; birthplaces, 58; efforts of, 24; feminism and, 304—5; garment—workers, 99; in government jobs, 116; known, 53—4; leftist, 60; life—styles, 87; occupations of, 54; record of, xiii; roots of, 56; Southern, 156,163,165; UAW, 245—7, 252—3, 260

ACW (Amalgamated Clothing Workers), 38,126,130—131

Addams, Jane, 39

Addes, George, 273

Advance, 117,130

Advocate, Union Labor, 31—2

affirmative action, 298

AFL (American Federation of Labor): embivalant attitude of women, 13, 113, 121—2; black workers and, 145, 152; child labor and, 158; CIO and, 172—3, 212, 215, 312; craft—oriented, 23, 43, 120,172; dominance of, 1, 8; equal pay, 13; ERA, 298; family wage, 8—11, 13; office workers and, 226—7; Southern women workers and, 165, 167—9; unskilled workers and, 23

African women's traditions, 140, 153

AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), 281, 282, 284, 286, 288, 293, 296, 317

AFI (American rederation of teachers), 282

age: discrimination, 316; restrictions, 269

Aitken, Agnes, 28, 39

Alisauskas, Arunas, 59

Allis Chalmers, 266

Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, 38,151,160

American Federation of Labour, see AFL

American Federationist, 121

American Nurses' Association, 282.

American Woolen Company, 43, 54

American Workers' Communist Party, 145

Ammons, Governor, 73,76,77

anarchist women, 121, 137

Anderson, Mary, 23, 34—5, 114—16, 119,176

Andrews, John B., 19, 176

Anthony, Katherine, 92,107

Army, United States, 80

Ashbaugh, C., 178

As...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Editor's preface
• I Bread before roses: American workingmen, labor unions and the family wage
• 2 Labor organizing and female institution-building: The Chicago Women's Trade Union League, 1904—24
• 3 Bread and roses revisited: Women's culture and working-class activism in the Lawrence strike of 1912
• 4 The women of the Colorado Fuel and Iron strike, 1913-14
• 5 Another look at the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union: Women, industry structure and collective action
• 6 Problems of coalition-building: Women and trade unions in the 1920s
• 7 Survival strategies among African—American women workers: A continuing process
• 8 'I know which side I'm on': Southern women in the labor movement in the twentieth century
• 9 'Where I was a person': The Ladies' Auxiliary in the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters' strikes
• 10 'We're no Kitty Foyles': Organizing office workers for the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1937—50
• 11 Organizing the United Automobile Workers: Women workers at the Ternstedt General Motors parts plant
• 12 Women and the United Automobile Workers' Union in the 1950s
• 13 Unionized women in state and local government
• 14 Women workers, feminism and the labor movement since the 1960s
• Index