History 246 Reading Guide

Working-Class Women:  The “Uprising of the 20,000” and the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Factory Fire

  • Daniel E. Bender, “‘Too much of Distasteful Masculinity’: Historicizing Sexual Harassment in the Garment Sweatshop and Factory,” Journal of Women’s History 15.4 (2004), 91-116. Project Muse
  • Selection of articles from the New York Times Archive through ProQuest: NY Shirtwaist Makers Strike, Nov.23, 1909-Mar. 8, 1910 .pdf; Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Mar. 26, 1912-Apr. 27, 1912 .pdf

Films and Further readings:

  • Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl:  A Documentary Produced by the American Social History Project (1993).
  • New York:  A Documentary, directed by Ric Burns (PBS 1999).
  • Clara Laughlin, The Work-a-Day Girl (1913).
  • Dorothy Richardson, The Long Day (1905).
  • Christine Stansell, “The Origins of the Sweatshop:  Women and Early Industrialization in New York City,” in M.H. Frisch and D.J. Walkowitz, Working Class America (1983), 78-103. [in Jean Friedman and William Shade, Our American Sisters 4th ed. (1987)].
  • Alice Kessler-Harris, “Where are the Organized Women Workers?” Feminist Studies 3 (1975), 92-110. [in Nancy Cott and Elizabeth Pleck, A Heritage of her Own (1979)].
  • Susan Levine, “Labor’s True Woman:  Domesticity and Equal Rights in the Knights of Labor,” Journal of American History 70 (1983), 323-339.  JSTOR

Questions: TBD