This page provides a general overview of the contents and organization of this
guide and a few beginning tips on researching the topic. Please select from the
following topics, or scroll down, for more on:
This page provides a general overview of the contents and organization of this
guide and a few beginning tips on researching the topic. Please select from the
following topics, or scroll down, for more on:
In general, the focus of this guide is women who have worked for wages in industrial, clerical, and service work and the professions in the United States, following the focus of much of the historical scholarship and the available documentation on women and labor. Many of the entries cover much-studied historical figures, such as coalfield organizer Mother Jones, the Lowell Mill Girls of the early Industrial Revolution, and turn-of-the century female factory operatives, who captured the attention of many Progressive reformers. Others cover less-studied but important topics, such as women breaking into male-dominated trades in recent decades and filling the ranks of much of the burgeoning service sector.
Though the vast majority of the material here concerns women's paid employment in traditional workplaces, this guide also selectively casts "work" in broader terms where possible, to include unpaid household labor, consumer organizing, political activism on labor issues, and cultural production, among other areas.
While there is much historical overlap between labor organizing and progressive political organizing, and political organizing is itself labor, this guide generally only includes sources on women and the Left in the U.S. as they directly pertain to women's paid employment and unionization. For the most part, then, this guide does not cover Tamiment's extensive holdings on women and pacifism, feminism, left political parties, etc. Where leftist political activists and organizations are referenced, the guide generally does not attempt to pinpoint definitive party or ideological affiliations.
To avoid broadening what is already a big topic, this guide also generally excludes sources, both primary and secondary, on women and work that include the U.S. but are international in scope.
Please keep in mind that material on women and labor may also be found in numerous primary and secondary sources at Tamiment/Wagner that are not primarily about women and/or labor and are not included here. As the title of one historical survey says, "Women Have Always Worked," so material on women's employment and related activism may be found throughout scholarship and historical records on work and labor organizing in the US, and on American women and gender. For example, a text like Studs Terkel's well-known oral history collection, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974) includes women in a diverse array of occupations.
More pertinent for Tamiment/Wagner's extensive holdings on the U.S. labor movement, women have constituted a significant minority presence in many male-dominated occupations and unions, and thus may appear in their records and histories in various ways. Additionally, male-dominated unions have often tried to mobilize wives and female relatives of members for strike support, consumer activism, and political work. AFL, CIO, and AFL-CIO records and publications often contain material concerning women, if only in a limited fashion (e.g., convention transcripts typically include at least a few resolutions on women in the work force and discuss the activities of women's auxiliaries).
Some general areas to search under for material on women and work include: working-class communities, families and/or households; occupational health and safety; protective labor legislation; union label and political action committees; and consumer activism.
To start looking beyond Tamiment/Wagner's invaluable but necessarily limited collections, see Reference Works for guides to sources that may or may not be available at Tamiment/Wagner, and see Internet Resources for links to other libraries, organizations, etc.
The guide is organized by several categories of unpublished and published sources. Each section has a brief introduction indicating generally what is included. Please keep in mind that arbitrary distinctions were sometimes necessary to organize the material.
The guide does provide some links between related materials, primarily to point
researchers to archival collections, and some cross-references. But researchers should keep in mind
that most individuals, organizations, and topics included in this guide appear in more than one category.
Please be sure to review all categories that might hold relevant sources, primary and secondary, on your
subject(s) of interest.
The goal has been to provide relatively concise and consistent annotations throughout, but time constraints have meant that some entries are not annotated at all and annotations for others vary in length and style.
Unless otherwise indicated, sources are listed in alphabetical order by author.
For more information on any of the holdings cited here or other materials at Tamiment/Wagner, please review the records in NYU Libraries' on-line catalog, BobCat (be sure to try the "detailed display" function if you use the Telnet version of the catalog) or consult with Tamiment/Wagner staff.
Depending on the particular topic of interest, researchers may want to explore broad categories that will retrieve many items, or try more specific search terms. Narrower searches can be tricky, so it is a good idea to test many possible terms and "mix and match." The "Related Works" menu option provided in the Telnet version of BobCat, once a particular title is identified, often provides a useful way to refine or expand searches.
General Library of Congress subject headings under which to search:
Some examples of more specific subject headings by name, description, geographical area,
genre:
Click here to begin searching BobCat.