New Women's Labor History

"The New Women's Labor History," a special issue of "Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas," offers the newest scholarship in the field of women's labor history. The product of a spirited international conference on women's labor history held at the University of Toronto in 2005, the issue suggests new directions for labor history--ones that address the study of gendered bodies at the intersections of politics of class, race, and citizenship. Contributors to this issue include some of the field's most respected senior scholars, as well as younger ones who represent the future of the field. The issue includes a "keynote" theoretical essay on the intersections of class, gender, and consumerism by renowned labor historian Alice Kessler-Harris. Another essay highlights the effects of work on laboring female bodies and promotes women's work in both rural and service industries. Other essays cover both new and reinterpreted topics, addressing indigenous women's labors; flight attendant unionism; the relationship among gender, class, and illness; the gendered meaning of disability in a working-class community; and the origins of the civil rights movement in African American women's job struggles during World War II. "Contributors," Kathleen M. Barry, Eileen Boris, Cortney Davis, Nancy M. Forestell, Laurie B. Green, Esyllt Jones, Alice Kessler-Harris, Paige RaibmonBoris, Eileen is the author of 'New Women's Labor History ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780822366584 and ISBN 0822366584.