Breadwinners: Working Women and Economic Independence, 1865-1920

Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History

by Lara Vapnek

This study of feminist labor reform examines how working women pursued equality by claiming new identities for themselves as citizens and as breadwinners. Lara Vapnek tells the story of American labor feminism from the end of the Civil War through the winning of woman suffrage rights, a period in which working women in the nation's industrializing cities launched a series of campaigns to gain economic equality and political power.

Focusing particularly on disjunctions between middle-class and working-class women's notions of independence, Vapnek highlights the specific contributions of reformers such as Jennie Collins, Leonora O'Reilly, and Helen Campbell, and organizations such as the National Consumers' League, the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, and the Women's Trade Union League. Locating households as important sites of class conflict, Breadwinners recovers the class and gender politics behind the marginalization of domestic workers in debates over labor reform while documenting the ways in which working-class women raised their voices on their own behalf.

Genres: History, Gender

232 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2009

Reviews

[Kayla Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a super interesting book I just finished for one of my history classes about working women. Vapnek explains the history of working women’s economic movements and the struggles they had with working class men and people in the middle and upper classes who tried to control their platform. It was interesting to learn about the relationship of the labor movement with domestic work and with the suffrage movement. Everyone could benefit from reading this because women’s labor struggles are not a big part of social studies curriculum. Vapnek’s work also highlights that businesses capitalize off of racism, sexism, and classism by preventing people from organizing against bad conditions and low pay.

[Jaime Rispoli-Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book challenges traditional historiographical discussions by claiming that the women's grassroots labor reform efforts were not the result of issues caused by male dominated workforce and unions, or the elite women's idea that working class women should provide domestic service, but rather was due to working women's desire for independence. In addition, Lara Vapnek points out that many scholars view the Gilded Age as a "low point of agitation for women's rights."She claims that by taking a broader view of women's rights, and including economic rights with suffrage, enables historians to see this time period as a "vital moment" in the women's movement. She also points out that other authors tend to focus on middle class and elite reformers and often ignore working class women's contribution to the cause. Vapnek states that although historians often give "compelling" accounts of how working men fought to preserve their “manliness” via unions and other forms of labor organization, not many accounts exist of the ways working women "demanded" they be seen as useful and important breadwinners of their families. Vapnek feels, and I agree, that she has added to the discussion of women's labor by explaining how working women's search for independence affected the work they chose to do and the strategies they used to achieve reform.

[Jim Swike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent