August 2012 Archives

Bender, D. E. (2004). Sweated work, weak bodies: Anti-sweatshop campaigns and languages of labor. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press.

Project: Clothing size and taxonomy

Keywords: sweatshops, homework, garment industry, women, gender, immigration, ready-to-wear, New York, Industrial Revolution, labour reform

Format: Book

Abstract: "In the early 1900s, thousands of immigrants labored in New York's Lower East Side sweatshops, enduring work environments that came to be seen as among the worst examples of Progressive-Era American industrialization. Although reformers agreed that these unsafe workplaces must be abolished, their reasons have seldom been fully examined. Sweated Work, Weak Bodies is the first book on the origins of sweatshops, exploring how they came to represent the dangers of industrialization and the perils of immigration. It is an innovative study of the language used to define the sweatshop, how these definitions shaped the first anti-sweatshop campaign, and how they continue to influence our current understanding of the sweatshop."

Key points: Bender explores the relationship between gender and sweatshop labour, with an emphasis on the social pressures placed on woman workers to better themselves by getting married and staying in the home.

Key concepts: relationship between americanization and the abolition of the sweatshop, ideals of class and gentility, abuse of immigrants in Industrial America, categorization and stratefication of race

Entities: Unions (Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union; Cloakmakers' Union; American Federation of Labor; etc); journalists/news outlets (New York Times; Neue Post; etc); factory owners; legislators; consumers; courts; police/inspectors; workers; religion; community organizations; educators.

Date this entry was written: 25/May/2012
Updated: 17/August/2012 (added entities)

Brumberg, J. J. (1988). Fasting girls: The emergence of anorexia nervosa as a modern disease. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Project: Clothing size and taxonomy

Keywords: anorexia nervosa, eating disorders, women, gender, body image, medicalization, medical history

Format: Book

Abstract: "Winner of four major awards, this updated edition of Joan Jacobs Brumberg's Fasting Girls, presents a history of women's food-refusal dating back as far as the sixteenth century. Here is a tableau of female self-denial: medieval martyrs who used starvation to demonstrate religious devotion, "wonders of science" whose families capitalized on their ability to survive on flower petals and air, silent screen stars whose strict "slimming" regimens inspired a generation. Here, too, is a fascinating look at how the cultural ramifications of the Industrial Revolution produced a disorder that continues to render privileged young women helpless. Incisive, compassionate, illuminating, Fasting Girls offers real understanding to victims and their families, clinicians, and all women who are interested in the origins and future of this complex, modern and characteristically female disease."

Key points: Brumberg gives valuable context to something characteristically modern and feminine. She explores the tension between anorexia nervosa as a physiological illness versus a psychological one. She also goes into the differing cultural environments across time, from the piety argument for anorexia to the beauty argument to the health argument. That, and the issue of control as something newly relevant to anorexia nervosa. Highlights the important distinction between anorexia nervosa and other related disorders like anorexia mirabilis.

Key concepts: appetite suppression as power or moral act, ideals of class and gentility, changing social mores of feminine value, changing role of women in society, evolution of family structure

Entities: doctors, parents, the medical establishment, organized religion

Date this entry was written: 25/May/2012

Downey, G. (2000). Running somewhere between men and women: Gender in the construction of the telegraph messenger boy. Knowledge and Society, 12, 129-152.

Project: Embodied knowledge workers

Keywords: gender, feminization, work, messenger boys, telegraphy, new york

Format: Journal article (?)

Abstract: None

Key points: Downey explores the place held by telegraph messenger boys as being functionally somewhere between men and women. He details the tasks they performed which would be viewed as of the woman's sphere, while providing the heroic depictions and myths of job advancement as masculine counterpoint. Attention is also given to the relationship between telegraph messenger boys and the vice industries (prostitution, gambling, alcohol-selling). The idealized place of messenger boys as apprentices to the manly business industry is troubled. Downey also covers the changing profile of messenger, from teen boys, to elderly men, back to boys, and finally to girls at the onset of WWI. Downey's explanation around the relationship between messenger boys and vice focuses on the public perceptions of women as corruptors of the boys' moral masculinity.

Key concepts: gendered work, women as corruptors, the fallible human face of the information industry, corporate abuse of young workers, public morality, legislating good business practices

Entities: Western Union, ADT, United States government, New York state government, messenger boys, telegraph company management, prostitutes, police officers, saloon patrons, housewives, business men

Date this entry was written: 1/August/2012