History of Working Class Women student papers, 1976
Overview
Summaries of interviews with Boston-area working class women compiled by University of Massachusetts Boston students of Linda Gordon, historian.
Dates
- Creation: 1976
Language of Materials
Materials in English.
Access Restrictions:
Access. Collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright. Copyright in the History of Working Class Women student papers may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns.
Copying. Papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures.
Extent
.21 linear feet (1/2 file box)Most of the papers are summaries of interviews by students in Linda Gordon's History of Working Class Women class. The interviewees were working-class women living in the Boston area, most of them immigrants from Ireland or Canada. Some students interviewed family members, and some changed or disguised the names of their interviewees. The interviews cover a broad range of topics including jobs held by the interviewees and their families, education, the division of labor in their households, and family life. A few discuss their arrival in America, and many discuss dating, entertainment, religion, marriage, and children. Some give detailed descriptions of sexual practices and childbirth. Difficulties, at work and in marriage, as a Catholic in Protestant Boston are also mentioned.
BIOGRAPHY
A graduate of Swarthmore College (B.A. 1961) and Yale University (M.A. 1964, Ph.D. 1970), Linda Gordon taught history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, 1968-1984, and has taught at the University of Wisconsin since 1984. In 1976 she taught a course entitled History of Working Class Women, in which one assignment was to summarize or transcribe an interview with a working-class woman.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Accession number: 76-319
These student papers were given to the Schlesinger Library in September 1976 by Linda Gordon, at the time associate professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Processing Information
Processed: March 1997
By: Glynn Edwards
Genre / Form
Topical
- Catholic women--Employment--Massachusetts
- Childbirth--Massachusetts
- Emigration and immigration
- French-Canadians--Employment--Massachusetts
- Immigrants--Massachusetts
- Immigrants--Massachusetts--Boston
- Irish American women--Employment--Massachusetts
- Italian American women--Employment--Massachusetts
- Women -- Employment -- Massachusetts
- Women--Massachusetts--Sexual behavior
- Working class women--Massachusetts--Boston
- Title
- Gordon, Linda. History of Working Class Women student papers, 1976: A Finding Aid
- Author
- Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
- Language of description
- eng
- Sponsor
- The collection was processed with funds provided by Clara Goldberg Schiffer.
- EAD ID
- sch00601
Repository Details
Part of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Repository
The preeminent research library on the history of women in the United States, the Schlesinger Library documents women's lives from the past and present for the future. In addition to its traditional strengths in the history of feminisms, women’s health, and women’s activism, the Schlesinger collections document the intersectional workings of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in American history.