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"In America's historical imagination, toil and triumph against nature and overwhelming odds characterizes such achievements as the Erie Canal and the transcontinental railroad. Triumph transformed canal and railroad entrepreneurs into visionaries whose work brought the nation bountiful riches and did the Lord's bidding. Celebrated for their spirit and perseverance in 'building' the nation's infrastructure, they found respect for looking to tomorrow and creating a future. For generations, most indexes of American history supported and reinforced this narrative of progress. Yet, if this is the historical memory, it is conveniently stunted. What of those whose bodies strained and broke under th...
An annual biographical dictionary, with which is incorporated "Men and women of the time."
This book explores how aging men struggled to sustain identities as workers, breadwinners, and patriarchs--the core ideals of twentieth-century masculinity--in the midst of increasing employer demands for the speed and stamina of youth in workplaces and the expansion of mandatory retirement policies in the age of Social Security.
For over two centuries the notion that societies have been sharply divided into women's (private) and men's (public) spheres has been used both to describe and to prescribe social life. More recently, it has been applied and critiqued by feminist scholars as an explanation for women's oppression. Spanning a rich array of historical contexts--from medieval nunneries to Ottoman harems to Paris communes to electronics firms in today's Silicon Valley--the twenty essays collected here offer a pathbreaking reassessment of the significance of the concept of separate spheres. After a theoretical introduction by the editors, certain essays reexamine historians' definitions of public and private realm...
Escaping the traditional focus on Paris, the author examines the divergent political identities of two occupational groups in Lyon, metal and silk workers, who, despite having lived and worked in the same city, developed different patterns of political practices and bore distinct political identities. This book also examines in detail the way that gender relations influenced industrial change, skill, and political identity. Combining empirical data collected in French archives with social science theory and methods, this study argues that political identities were shaped by the intersection of the prevailing political climate with the social relations surrounding work in specific industrial settings.
The fundamentals guiding labor historians are under scrutiny today as never before. The field has attempted to uncover the socioeconomic conditions that produced labor militancy and class consciousness, with scholars focusing on proletarianization---the loss of control over the production process---as the key to class conflict. Currently, this entire approach is being questioned. In Rethinking Labor History, nine well-known French labor historians join the debate. Advocates of both revisionist Marxism and discourse analysis are represented, and examples of empirical research emerging from the theoretical disputes are included.
In Latin American countries, the modern factory originally was considered a hostile and threatening environment for women and family values. Nine essays dealing with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Guatemala describe the contradictory experiences of women whose work defied gender prescriptions but was deemed necessary by working-class families in a world of need and scarcity. 19 photos.
'Politics of the Pantry' examines the rise and fall of the American housewife as a political constituency group and explores the relationship between the domestic sphere and the formation of political identity
A Companion to Gender History surveys the history of womenaround the world, studies their interaction with men in genderedsocieties, and looks at the role of gender in shaping humanbehavior over thousands of years. An extensive survey of the history of women around the world,their interaction with men, and the role of gender in shaping humanbehavior over thousands of years. Discusses family history, the history of the body andsexuality, and cultural history alongside women’s history andgender history. Considers the importance of class, region, ethnicity, race andreligion to the formation of gendered societies. Contains both thematic essays and chronological-geographicessays. Gives due weight to pre-history and the pre-modern era as wellas to the modern era. Written by scholars from across the English-speaking world andscholars for whom English is not their first language.
In this engrossing and original book, Leslie Salzinger takes us with her into the gendered world of Mexico's global factories. Her careful ethnographic work, personal voice, and sophisticated analysis capture the feel of life inside the maquiladoras and make a compelling case that transnational production is a gendered process. The research grounds contemporary feminist theory in an examination of daily practices and provides an important new perspective on globalization.