Unorganized women : repetitive rhetorical labor and low-wage workers, 1834-1937 / Jane Greer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Greer, Jane, author.

Series:

Composition, Literacy, and Culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Industrial relations--United States.

Industrial relations.

United States.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (209 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2023]

Summary:

"Across a range of industrial, domestic, and agricultural sites, Greer shows how repetitive discursive performances served as rhetorical tools as women workers sought to rescript power relations in their workplaces and to resist narratives about their laboring lives. The case studies reveal noteworthy patterns in how these women's words helped to construct the complex web of class relations in which they were enmeshed. Rather than a teleological narrative of economic empowerment over the course of a century, Unorganized Women speaks to the enduring obstacles low- and no-wage women face, their creativity and resilience in the face of adversity, and the challenges that impede the creation of meaningful coalitions. By focusing on repetitive rhetorical labor, this book affords a point of entry for analyzing the discursive productions of a range of women workers and for constructing a richer history of women's rhetoric in the United States."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Working women, working words

Chapter 1: Weaving new identities: Mill girls and the Lowell Offering, 1834-1845

Chapter 2: Service(able) rhetorics: repetition, standardization, and household workers, 1877-1902

Chapter 3: Revisiting imitatio, reinforcing neighborly networks of solidarity: Appalachian farm women and the moonlight schools, 1911-1920

Chapter 4: Piecework: rhetorical accrual at the Donnelly Garment Company, 1933-1937

Afterword: Working women, working words: from the past to the present at home and abroad.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

9780822989790

OCLC:

1374430663