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COLLECTION Identifier: MC 441

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

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.

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