From Angel to Office Worker

Middle-Class Identity and Female Consciousness in Mexico, 1890–1950

Susie S. Porter

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781496204219
• eBook ISBN: 9781496206497
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Mexican History
• Index: History

2019 Thomas McGann Award for best publication in Latin American Studies In late nineteenth-century Mexico a woman's presence in the home was a marker of middle-class identity. However, as economic conditions declined during the Mexican Revolutionand jobs traditionally held by women disappeared, a growing number of women began to look for work outside the domestic sphere. As these "angels of the home" began to take office jobs, middle-class identity became more porous. To understand how office workers shaped middle-class identities in Mexico, From Angel to Office Worker examines the material conditions of women's work and analyzes how women themselves reconfigured public debates over their employment. At the heart of the women's movement was a labor movement led by secretaries and office workers whose demands included respect for seniority, equal pay for equal work, and resources to support working mothers, both married and unmarried. Office workers also developed a critique of gender inequality and sexual exploitation both within and outside the workplace. From Angel to Office Worker is a major contribution to modern Mexican history as historians begin to ask new questions about the relationships between labor, politics, and the cultural and public spheres.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Graphs and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. “Women of the Middle Class, More Than Others, Need to Work”
• 2. Office Work and Commercial Education during the 1920s
• 3. Writing and Activism in 1920s Mexico City
• 4. Women at Work in Government Offices in 1930s Mexico City
• 5. Commercial Education and Writing during the 1930s
• 6. Office Workers Organize during the 1930s
• 7. Women, Work, and Middle-Class Identity during the 1940s
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About Susie S. Porter
• Series List