In turn-of-the-century New York, Italian immigrant daughters
spent their youth in factories while their mothers did irregular
wage labor as well as domestic work at home. By the I940s,
Italian-American girls were in school, socializing and preparing
for white-collar jobs that would not begin until they were
eighteen. Drawing on a range of sources from censuses to high
school yearbooks, Miriam Cohen examines shifting patterns in the
family roles, work lives, and schooling of two generations of
Italian-American women. Paying particular attention to the
importance of these women's pragmatic daily choices, she documents
how major social and political changes helped create new
opportunities and constraints for the second generation.
While financial need was a powerful factor in determining the
behavior of the first generation women, Cohen shows, they and their
daughters succeeded in adapting family survival strategies to new
work patterns. Once the second generation was married, their
careers mirrored those of the first in many ways: they raised
children, cared for the home, and took on paid employment when
necessary. Unlike their mothers, however, these Italian-American
wives could also participate in the growing consumerism surrounding
home and childcare. Throughout, Cohen compares the changing
Italian-American experience with that of Jewish women, discovering
significant similarities in these experiences by 1950.
As well as presenting a nuanced portrait of one group of ethnic
working-class women, Workshop to Office demonstrates the impact of
political developments on individual lives. It will spark lively
debates among students and scholars of social history, immigration
history, labor history, women's history, and the history of
education in the United States.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!