Abstract
Strike up a conversation on the topic of women working in nontraditional, blue-collar jobs and often as not, the first association is with World War II’s Rosie the Riveter. Between 1940 and 1944, the number of women working not only doubled, but also the percentage of jobs “acceptable” for a woman increased from 29 to 85 percent. The federal government threw open the factory gates to American women with an unprecedented and hearty welcome. What choice was there? The German U-boat campaign and security concerns made immigrants almost impossible to obtain.1
As students of the mysteries of our trade We uncovered the phasing of our cycles:
one falling in defeat signaled
another
rising in triumph
and so we carried each other through the sine waves of emotion re-charging each other’s determination with stored up capacitance for
derision
shunning
loneliness.
—Past the Finish Line, Susan Eisenberg
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Notes
See The Encyclopedia of American Economic History and the data of historians, whose estimates vary on the numbers and impact of the women who responded to the demand for their . Alice Kessler Harris, Women Having Always Worked (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981), 142–143; and Out to Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 276–287.
Sheila Rowbotham, A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States (London: Penguin Books, 1997), 249–250.
Nancy MacLean, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006), 298.
Alice Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 268–269.
Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America (New York: Penguin Group, 2000).
Rosalyn Baxandall, “Between Memory and History,” October 6, 2001.
Claudia Dreifus, “Don’t Compromise, Organize,” in “The Gazette, News from All Over,” Ms., June 1974. Dreifus, described the participants at the conference, which was held at the Martin Luther King Center in New York City: “The next time an antifeminist barks that the women’s movement is ‘nothing but a bunch of idle middle-class white females with a moderate complaint,’ tell him (or her) about the First New York Women’s Trade Union Conference. In January, 600 women-young and old, black and white, welders, cab drivers, teachers, union officials, assembly-line workers, and secretaries-met…to share their experiences and learn what they can do to improve the lot of the 33 million women who for a living.” Approximately 1 percent of New York City’s cab driversout of 44,000 drivers-are women, 33 years later. See Melissa Plant, Hack: How I Stopped Worrying About What to Do with My Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab (New York: Random House, 2007).
Betty Friedan, Life So Far: A Memoir (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 184.
Nan Robertson, The Girls in the Balcony: Women, Men, and The New York Times (New York: Random House, 1992), 185.
See Mary Margaret Fonow, Union Women Forging Feminism in the United Steelworkers of America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003); and
Marat Moore, Women in the Mines: Stories of Life and Work (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). See also United Women Firefighters’ Records, Robert F. Wagner Archives, New York University for organizing in both the Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA) and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA), New York City.
Susan Eisenberg, We’ll Call You If We Need You: Experiences of Women Working Construction (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 191.
See Tanya Melich, The Republican War Against Women: An Insider’s Report from Behind the Lines (New York: Bantam Books, 1996).
Donald T. Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman’s Crusade (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005); and
Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (NewYork: Doubleday, 1992).
See Francine Moccio, “Contradicting Male Power and Privilege: Class, Race and Gender Relations in the Building Trades” (Ph.D. diss., New School for Social Research, 1992), 212–214; 236–243.
See also Ann Jochems, “A History of Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW), The First Years. 1978–1992.” (M.A. thesis, Baruch College, The City University of New York, 2003).
Lynn Sherr, Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words (New York: Random House, 1995), 324. She spoke these words at her last public appearance—her final birthday celebration in Washington, D.C. on February 15,1906.
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© 2008 Jane LaTour
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LaTour, J. (2008). Rosie’s Daughters. In: Sisters in the Brotherhoods. Palgrave Studies in Oral History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230614079_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230614079_1
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