Beyond Norma Rae : how Puerto Rican and southern White women fought for a place in the American working class / Aimee Loiselle.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Loiselle, Aimee, author.

Series:

Gender & American culture

Gender and American Culture Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Working class women--United States--History--20th century.

Working class women.

Women in the labor movement--United States--History--20th century.

Women in the labor movement.

Needleworkers--Labor unions--Organizing--United States--History--20th century.

Needleworkers.

Textile workers--Labor unions--Organizing--United States--History--20th century.

Textile workers.

Women--Political activity--Southern States--20th century.

Women.

Puerto Rican women--Political activity--20th century.

Puerto Rican women.

Labor movement--United States--History--20th century.

Labor movement.

Women labor leaders--United States--History--20th century.

Women labor leaders.

Working class--United States--History--20th century.

Working class.

Norma Rae (Motion picture : 1979).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (308 pages) : illustrations.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill, North Carolina : The University of North Carolina Press, [2023]

Summary:

"In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources—union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories—Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and its labor activism. While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are"-- Title details screen.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Series Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION: Who Makes the American Working Class: Women Workers and Culture

PART I

CHAPTER ONE: Women Workers in the US Atlantic: Seeing the Raw Material before Cultural Production

CHAPTER TWO: Gloria Maldonado and Puerto Rican Needleworkers: Moving in Colonial Currents

PART II

CHAPTER THREE: Crystal Lee and Southern Millhands: Extracting a "Life Story"

CHAPTER FOUR: From Crystal Lee to "Crystal Lee" to Norma Rae: Making and Capitalizing on the Movie

PART III

CHAPTER FIVE: Norma Rae Stands Alone: Eliminating Alternatives

CHAPTER SIX: The Norma Rae Icon: Inspiring Neoliberal Individualism

EPILOGUE: Contesting Who Determines the American Working Class

PREVIEW: Making Christian Smalls

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Loiselle, Aimee Beyond Norma Rae

ISBN:

979-88-908624-9-5

1-4696-7615-X