Sealskin and Shoddy: Working Women in the American Nineteenth Century Labor Press, 1870-1920

(Hardback)

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As industrialization transformed American life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, increasing numbers of women sought employment outside the home and many were drawn into the labor movement. This collection of twenty-five stories published in union journals offers a portrait both of women's experiences as wage-earners and of the conflicts, values, and aspirations that touched their lives in this period of massive social upheaval. Written by reformers, union officials, and popular fiction writers, the stories present an uneasy synthesis of labor movement virtues with domestic ideals of femininity, females assertiveness with female subordination, and moralizing with romantic fantasy.

Author Bio

ANN SCHOFIELD is Associate Professor of American Studies and Women's Studies at the University of Kansas.