Angels of the workplace : women and the construction of gender relations in the Canadian clothing industry, 1890-1940 / Mercedes Steedman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Steedman, Mercedes, author.

Series:

Canadian social history series.

Canadian Social History Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Labor unions--Canada.

Labor unions.

Women labor union members--Canada--History.

Women labor union members.

Sex discrimination in employment--Canada--History.

Sex discrimination in employment.

Canada.

Genre:

History.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (347 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Toronto, [Ontario] ; Buffalo, [New York] ; London [England] : University of Toronto Press, 1997.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this renowned 1997 study of the clothing industry in Canada, Mercedes Steedman examines how the intricate weaving together of the meanings of class, gender, ethnicity, family, and the workplace created a job ghetto for women. Although women comprised a significant majority of garment workers, their roles were limited both in the workplace and in the trade union bureaucracy. Detailing the disparaties between men and women in terms of wages and representation, Angels of the Workplace is the definitive history of discrimination against women in Canada's clothing industry. Steedman shows the crucial role that women played at the front of the picket lines during labour strikes and reveals how they gained sympathy and favourable media coverage for the workers' cause. Tracing both the new hopes for more equitable work brought about by left-wing unionism, and the disappointments caused by the cooperation of labour and management in the "new unionism" of the 1930s, Angels of the Workplace reveals how formalized workplace gender discrimination was formalized for the rest of the century.

Contents:

1 Introduction: Across the Great Divide

2 The Industrial Fields of Activity: Send Forth Your Daughters

3 Worlds Apart: Women and Unions in the Needle Trades, 1890-1920

4 From Shop-Floor Action to New Unionism: The War Years and After

5 Taking a Stand: Civil War in the Needle Trades

6 'A Real Man's Fight': Clothing Battles in the Depression Years

7 When the Boys Get Together: Orchestrating Consent

8 After the Acts: Setting the Standards, Putting on the Pressure

9 Conclusion: 'This Group of Girls and Men ...'.

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed September 20, 2016).

ISBN:

1-4426-5939-4

1-4426-5743-X

OCLC:

903421430