Out to Work A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States

by Kessler-Harris, Alice

• ISBN13: 9780195157093
• ISBN10: 0195157095
• Edition: 20th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-02-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

First published in 1982, this pioneering work traces the transformation of "women's work" into wage labor in the United States, identifying the social, economic, and ideological forces that have shaped our expectations of what women do. Basing her observations upon the personal experience of individual American women set against the backdrop of American society, Alice Kessler-Harris examines the effects of class, ethnic and racial patterns, changing perceptions of wage work for women, and the relationship between wage-earning and family roles. In the 20th Anniversary Edition of this landmark book, the author has updated the original and written a new Afterword.

Author Biography

Alice Kessler-Harris is the R. Gordon Hoxie Professor of American History at Columbia University, where she also teaches in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She is the author of A Woman's Wage, Women Have Always Worked and In Pursuit of Equity.

Table of Contents

I Forming the Female Wage Labor Force: Colonial America to the Civil War
Limits of Independence in the Colonial Economy	3	(17)
From Household Manufactures to Wage Work	20	(25)
Industrial Wage Earners and the Domestic Ideology	45	(30)
II The Idea of Home and Mother at Work: The Civil War to World War I
``Why Is It Can a Woman Not Be Virtuous If She Does Mingle with the Toilers?''	75	(33)
Women's Choices in an Expanding Labor Market	108	(34)
Technology, Efficiency, and Resistance	142	(38)
Protective Labor Legislation	180	(37)
III Transforming the Notion of Work for Women: World War I to the Present
Ambition and Its Antidote in a New Generation of Female Workers	217	(33)
Some Benefits of Labor Segregation in a Decade of Depression	250	(23)
``Making History Working for Victory''	273	(27)
The Radical Consequences of Incremental Change	300	(20)
A Note of Acknowledgment	320	(5)
Epilogue	325	(12)
Notes	337	(66)
Index	403