Please read the course materials for week 4 and then participate in this discussion. Please add to the readings the materials in "Course Resources" under the topic: "The Great Depression and WWII." Especially the first section of the "Commentary" has suggestive details for interpreting and understanding the three major articles in the week's readings. All focus on the experience of working women in the 1930s, a time that, in may ways, set the stage for massive involvement of women in the work force from then on. Also to notice is the work of Alice Kessler Harris, "Women Have Always Worked." As a professor at Rutgers, and former President of the Association for Women's Studies nationally, her work documents the work of women, especially in what we now call the "blue collar" fields rather than "elite women" whose education and economic assets created a different sort of "work." A later study of hers about the Class Action by those women fired by Sears, is noteworthy in its analysis of the reality of women at work in the industrial and commercial areas of American life. If you look carefully at the list of sources that Hyman uses in her study of American Plays in the 1930s focused on drama as a representation of the labor movement, you will see how much scholarly work has been accomplished in the arena of "social history of the USA." One name that stands out both in the Course Resources and in Hyman's list is Sara Evans. Sara, now an emerita professor of Women's Studies at the University of Minnesota, was the first woman hired to head it as a new department forty years ago. Her book, "Born for Liberty," used to be the required text for this course, as the Course Resources indicate--they being written while the book was still required. Having now only freely available online resources means we aren't using Evans as text, but if you wish to find a good overview of Women in America, not just from 1870, but from pre-colonial days to the 21st Century, it is an excellent resource. You could find it in libraries, and it may well have some parts available in the UMUC library resources. I suggest Evans and the citations in Hyman to remind us all that there are many places to search for appropriate materials for your research project. Hyman, of course, utilizes scripts written for dramatic production, both professional and amateur. What that can mean for your work is that Primary Sources from literature are good things to include if your research warrants them. Last week it was Visual Art. One of the essential things about the development of Women's Studies is that it is interdisciplinary--and, thus, relates more thoroughly to the lives of women than does a survey or list of dates of "important national events." To be honest, my own engagement with "history" became exciting when social history developed. I found it much more compelling, especially in its relationship to "poor, dear, real life" than the dates and names of great events and great men were the focus. Hyman's work also shows how many ways one can dig into a specific topic: race, gender, economics, political organization at the governmental and personal levels, and so forth are all part of her analysis. It might be useful to use your post to look at industrial neighborhoods from the perspective of inter-ethnic and/or inter-racial perspectives. There are differences. The current concern among many in the USA is still focused on how ones neighborhood or ones work group is or is not integrated and in what ways. It turns out that inter-ethnic friendships in the second and third generation, all among European-Americans, are taken for granted in many places. Those which are inter-racial, though far more integrated social and culturally than in the 1930s, are still a question: note how the last national election's demographics are defined. Note, too, the push for schools that are not public and the redistricting challenges for congressional seats. America's "melting pot" is still not "melted," and the strife within that construct continues to be witnessed in our national life. (and in the shelters from the storm, IRMA, and "HARVEY" and, sadly, more to come. Those with funds take flights or drive away from danger; the poorer go to shelters or try to manage at home.) Since I spent eighteen years in Fargo, ND's twin city, Moorhead, I especially enjoyed reading about the farm girls who left home to go to the "big city" of Fargo in the 1930s. That essay, focused on a particular group in a particular place, makes a good example or symbol of a movement that was broad in the USA at the time. In fact, if you read "Sister Carrie," Theodore Dreiser's novel about the farm girl who went to the bigger city, Chicago, early in the 20th Century, you'll see that the Fargo story simply came 25 years later and was, probably, less glamorous than Carrie's became in Dreiser's imaginative reporting. The old song line, "How ya gonna' keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree," rings true for women, as well as for rural soldiers returning from WWI. It still does! It is worth noting how the author developed his sources for Fargo--sources that large, national or international research do not often count on--names and personal diaries as well as census reports. Third, Hartman's study, which begins by referencing Kessler-Harris's important work, shows not only how women did organize for labor in the 1930s but the reasons why they did not. The international element is an important one, also. The reality of American life and the paradigm of it are often in conflict--especially when the idea of "American exceptionalism" is argued. The elite reformers, such as Jane Addams, worked closely with British counterparts, especially their literary production, as a basis for defining issues on which to base the good life in community. Further, Addams was the founding President of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. The women garment workers worked with the International Women's Garment Workers Union, still the most prominent organized effort for women. However, the limitations on their cooperation are well defined in the study we are reading. It is noteworthy how the overriding vision of the day on what it is to be a "good American" and a "good woman" shape life. Perhaps we find here some sort of enlightenment on why women today still earn only about 80 cents to the $ earned by men. I look forward to your digging into one of the many possible issues in the week's readings and in discovering more about how to do good research. Please read the course materials for week 4 and then participate in this discussion. Resourses • Strom, Sharon Hartman. "CHALLENGING "WOMAN'S PLACE": FEMINISM, THE LEFT, AND INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM IN THE 1930'S." Feminist Studies Link • I'm Done Danbom, David B. "Rural Girls in Fargo During the 1930s." Agricultural History Link • I'm Done Hyman, Colette A. "Women, workers, and community: Working-class visions and workers' theatre in the 1930s." Canadian Review Of American Studies Link
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