2 comments about Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States.

1. This excellent book describes how women have always worked in what is today the USA. Well written with good examples it tells the story of how women moved from working primarily at home industries through early factory days (and how factories were made acceptable and then degraded into sweat shops and worse). It continues the story through the 19th and 20th centuries, discussing how often public perceptions and rhetoric conflicted with actual work practices. I am very glad it is out in a new edition and that a new generation will have easy access to it.



2. I've been reading US women's history for a couple of years now,
   working on background for a novel, and I have seen nothing that
   matches this book for careful, detailed exposition of the role of
   women in the workplace. I'm most familiar with the period from
   1880 to 1910, and Kessler-Harris covers that era thoroughly and
   convincingly. Reading about the earlier years, though, has greatly
   increased my understanding of the period I've been studying.
   
   Kessler-Harris shows how paternalistic beliefs about "woman's
   place," and views of women as weak and basically stupid, have from
   the beginning deeply influenced the lives of women of all classes, but
   she also shows how even the development of new machinery in
   factories was shaped by the needs of employers to find cheap
   workers--who were, of course, women.
   
   I wish women would read this book. Talk about
   consciousness-raising!
   
   Having done a good deal of historical research with primary sources, on other subjects and in other periods, I know Kessler-Harris has been thorough and conscientious. She also writes very well. I'm going to buy the new edition, because whatever she has to say will be fascinating.

No comments about Multicultural and Diversity Strategies for the Fire Service (Brady Fire).

2 comments about Making Diversity Work: 7 Steps for Defeating Bias in the Workplace.

1. It is difficult to count the gains and address the challenges both met and remaining in the diversity story of the USA over the past decades. Diversity started as the "right thing to do" and ended up as a "business case" for corporate success. Supported by three core US values equality, law, and market capitalism, the diversity venture goes forward, unfortunately, with mixed success.
   
   Thiederman's revision of her already highly successful book attempts to bolster some of the weaker areas of the diversity endeavor, namely in fresh chapters substantiating the power of reason and conscious decisions to reduce bias in both word and behavior. This is done in a context that admits to the natural functions of bias that affect us all. In other words we all have built in mechanisms that can produce bias and it is in recognizing and managing these mechanisms that we can reduce their effects on our working together.
   
   Diversity experts such as Thiederman have long recognized that the management of bias and the effects of bias is a key element in the ability to offer equal opportunity and guarantee the productivity of a mixed workforce. It is the "how to" that interests us and is the focus of her book. In the US context of psychologized personal responsibility, this "how to" forms the core of what is in fact a self-help process. The seven steps for defeating bias outlined in the book are individual behavioral modifications. These include one of seeking out kinship groups, as it were finding or founding voluntary support groups, which are not unlike those constructed by psychologists and gurus for other forms of coping and self-development.
   
   Lest the reader think I am trying to be cynical here, this is not the case. I am simply pointing out that how USians seek to do diversity is very US American in its cultural values and processes, as is to be expected. My interest as an expatriate trainer and consultant, working in cross-cultural and diversity initiatives in Europe and Asia, is to carefully observe the US approaches for both what they can contribute elsewhere as well as to discover what does not fit and may indeed become counterproductive to what we hope to achieve in non-US contexts. It is in that perspective that I review resources such as this with the hope that these comments produce some food for thought and fresh perspectives for the target market of the work as well as for others.
   
   Thiederman is asking the reader (and hopefully user) of the processes in this book to enter on a kind of enlightened self development that is often in conflict with the current epistemology of the US public. We are living in a period in which opinion, thinking, and belief are largely the function of political and corporate storytelling that determines what our fears and our worries should be all about. Such stories frequently support and reinforce the biases about others that reside in our unconscious. Thiederman is right on target in pointing out that our biases, the fearful stories we have been taught to tell ourselves, serve as a kind of "magic" for disappearing unpleasant and unresolved realities. Judgments about others are the inner Jeannie and Samantha whose antics take less effort than rational thinking about reality.
   
   To examine these dynamics with the rational mind may not be easy psychologically or even socially as doing so tends to develops critics, whistleblowers, as well as the kind of individuals who can respond effectively to what Thiederman describes as "Gateway Events" in which opportunities arise to prevent or identify and reduce bias in action, but in which courage and--albeit carefully constructed--candor and confrontation, are required.
   
   One could compare the advice in this book to the behavioral or spiritual handbooks of bygone years. The "spiritual exercises" in Making Diversity Work differ in one significant way from the bulk of advice found in spiritual resources classic and contemporary, which claim that the core of self management lies in developing the strength not to be perturbed by the opinions and sometimes hurtful behavior of others. "You make me feel," is the victim's leitmotif and in a society where the behaviors of others are assumed to be the determinants of how we should feel. In such a culture we are all victims, all entitled to take offense at what we perceive as or choose to believe are the slights of others that have made us feel one way or another. Not surprisingly a cult of mental and emotional damage has surfaced as a factor in US social and legal thinking.
   
   Entitlement in the USA seems to have grown to include my right to feel offended as if I had no ability to choose how I should feel. Thiederman's book is about regaining some of that power of choice. Obviously we have spontaneous reactions to what goes on about us and to what others do and say, but we also learn how not to make this the sole determinant of how we will react and respond.
   
   Guilty or innocent? Early on the reader is treated to a series of case studies in which she or he is asked to judge whether the actors are guilty or innocent of bias. Thiederman does an excellent analysis of the nuances of each case and how given certain factors it might turn out differently. Judging others in a dichotomous legal fashion, however, is part of the US mentality. It also seems to be an underlying premise of the discussion of bias, which in many respects amounts to unfair judgment. What is not called into question is use of the right to judge, nor the sense of righteousness in judging others which, if unexamined construct a vicious circle. Thiederman looks at the dynamic of expressing offense from the perspective of "guilt tripping." What is the goal of "laying a guilt trip" on someone? When is it justified? Is it vindictive or corrective? This is the same question that has to be asked of the behavior of those who impose a kind of scarlet letter on others via the abuse of so-called political correctness. Diversity training--and here I do add a touch of cynicism, having engaged in it myself for over 30 years--will never run out of clients if it fosters the mentality that it purports to correct.
   
   How all this fits into the corporate story and the corporate story of diversity is not the topic of this book, but it is the responsibility of sound diversity management. There are such questions as: Is the cultivation of a diversity culture in fact the great leveler of difference? How is diversity "consciousness" used to suppress healthy criticism in a corporate organism? Is diversity in an organization's corporate story a serious commitment or a marketing ploy or both?
   
   Thiederman writes extremely well as those who subscribe to her occasional newsletters are aware. She usually treats us to a good story, and a good reflection on it.
   
   Making Diversity Work provides two appendices, the first a sort of short summary guide that is meant to assist the reader to review and remember the basic attitudes and practices inculcated in each of the chapters, a kind of compendium or vademecum of what has been learned and should be practiced. The second appendix provides trainers with a set of activities that can be used to explore experiences of identity and bias and the emotions that are raised around them and support the learnings fostered in the book.
   
   George Simons, La Napoule, 1 August 2008



2. Dr. Thiederman cuts to the heart of the "real" diversity issues and gives both intellectual and real world help and resources. The book covers all the essential information and provides resources for group and individual learning - both personal and in the workplace.

2 comments about Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic.

1. Boydson goes to prove that the average woman ha had to work long and hard hours that have been often under paid and overworked while the men get their payment, the women must endure long hours and work extra hard. This book seeks to tell how the women have built the economy and have been one of the major leaders yet do not get the credit that they deserve. Think about the long hours put in spinning, canning, and doing the house work without air conditioning and yet still how it is today! This si the book to read for all historians.



2. I have to modify significantly the previous reviewer's take on this book. Boydston does not argue that women did all the work while men got all the pay. What she argues is that because women did as much unpaid work as they did, factories benefited more from male labor than they might have if they'd considered and economically rewarded the female labor that went into making the male a productive worker. In other words, capitalists effectively got two for the price of one when they hired a male worker. Without a female working for free at home while practicing home economics to keep expenses low, the American labor-profit system in the early republic would have been unsustainable. To make this system palatable, Boydston argues in her concluding chapter (indeed, the chapter that really is the point of the book), the culture generated a pastoral mystique of housework . . . images and ways of talking about housework that made it seem not only natural, but part of the beauty and splendor of nature.
   
   The previous reviewer's take suggests that this book in some way could be read as perpetuating a simplistic male/female gender war mentality. Instead, where this book really leads is to a common enemy of the mass of men and women: an exploitative political economy that thrives on the poverty of the family. Women entering the marketplace has done little to solve the problem. Indeed, what Boydston shows is that women have always been in the marketplace. If you think about it after reading this book, it becomes pretty clear that in the postmodern, post industrial age, capital is still getting two workers for the price of one: women working for less pay than men and men working for less pay than they have before. Meanwhile, the economy absorbs the on average lower female wage in a network of childcare services (daycare, formula, etc.) and "busy lifestyle" services (convenience food, maid services, etc.) that leave the situation little changed. Meanwhile, of course, the marketing machine continues working overtime to naturalize this situation.

No comments about One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866-1928.

5 comments about Ultimate Guide to Workers' Compensation Insurance (Entrepreneur Magazine's Ultimate Books).

1. This book describes in detail information I have never gotten from my insurance agent. It gives you a detailed insight into the world of workers' compensation and has been very useful in helping me to make sure that what we do as a company is under the right classification. It would have been difficult to argue our case without the knowledge I obtained from this book. Worth every penny!



2. If you are in business and have any significant worker's compensation premium. You need this book. I wish that I would have read it 10 years ago.



3. I was looking for a good introduction to worker's compensation and I'm glad that I settled on this book. It's very well written and organized and I've already recommended it to a few colleagues.



4. This book is aimed at businesses. For the injured worker, the best guide out there is How to Win a Worker's Compensation Claim in Illinois. Even if you don't live in Illinois, this layman's guide gives you a very good overview of the Workers' Compensation system.



5. Comprehensive and to the point, this is an excellent resource if you need to learn about NY Workers Compensation in a hurry.

3 comments about Women and the Criminal Justice System (2nd Edition).

1. Although laid out like a textbook(numerous summary statements and bullet points) and encompassing an enormous amount of literature, the writing is crisp and interesting, liberally sprinkled with quotes, original interviews, vignettes and illustrative sidebars. The chapters fall into the basic categories of women as imprisoned perpetrators, women as victims of crimes, and the place of women in the law enforcement system. The book is a joint effort from a social work professor and a sociology/criminal justice professor. THis resulted in a fruitful interplay between the objective and subjective voice in the presentation of this material. The subject is explicitly approached from an empowerment perspective, which focuses on giving people the information they need to navigate the issues most effectively for helping themselves and others.The assumption is that issues of gender,social class and racial oppression enter into all aspects of the subject.This is a valuable and rare resource in this area of human concern. Reviewed in Social Work Forum Newsletter



2. Van Wormer and Bartollas' book provides a very broad discussion of all facets of women in the criminal justice system, such as rape, spouse abuse, women in prison, women in law enforcement, and women in the legal profession. Because of its broad range of information, it provides a strong book for courses in criminal justice programs involving women. It also provides a strong reader for lay persons who are just interested in knowing the issues involving women and the criminal justice system. In the College of Social Work at Ohio State University, I teach a course entitled social work practice in corrections and would adopt this book as a second book for my course to provide students with broad perspective of women issues in criminal justice.



3. Yet another waste of text. The same old vitim plight of the poor poor female in our modern society. I need a tissue! this book would have gotten a better review if I had read it in the 1960's.

   Get over it.

3 comments about Race Rebels : Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class.

1. Race Rebels forces readers to re-think their definitions of politics, resistance, and the relationship between social movements and everyday life. It is certainly the most sophisticated history book I've ever read. The author does a great job dissecting the struggles of African Americans in the 20th century and helps us understand why these struggles are so fundamental to american history.



2. Kelley highlights an underappreciated portion of twentieth century American history - the intersection of the Negro working class with the simultaneous aspects of race and class. His book delves into the interwar period, and brings back almost forgotten archives and memories.
   
   The influence of Marxist thought on some Negro activists is shown. To the extent that the American Communist Party received significant membership from Negroes. At the time, it was one of the few relatively colour-blind organisations. Of course, this very fact was used against the Communists and Negro activists by segregationists.
   
   The book has numerous nuggets of history that might have often been omitted from other texts. Thus, you may well have heard of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which fought for the Spanish Republic during its civil war. But did you know that in that brigade were over 70 Negroes? Who saw the war as an extension of a war on racism and poverty, in Africa and the US. Kelley shows gives us their motivations and how they fared.



3. In "Race Rebels," Robin D.G. Kelley explores the social history of cultural and community "spaces" that allowed for identity and resistance in the black community to evolve in the postwar United States. Forms of resistance took place, in Kelley's view, in places which were not traditionally seen as organized -- not the workplace, not politics, not fraternal organizations. Claiming urban spaces, these actions created a contested terrain -- whites flee buses for automobiles; whites accuse black "zoot suiters" of laziness and un-Americanism. Kelley explores "hidden transcripts" of agency -- resistance in this era was not simply about the NAACP and unions.

5 comments about Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor.

1. ...

   This book weaves Hine's story together with his photographs of kids working in Maine's sardine canneries, Texas cotton fields, New York laundries, Tennessee and Georgia cotton mills and in textile mills all over the U.S. south. He took some of the most haunting photos of dark tunnels and grimy breaker rooms in Pennsylvania coalmines. He went inside glass factories, to farms, and onto city streets at 1 a.m. to photograph children distributing newspapers and 1 p.m. to watch them shining boots.

   ...

   If your kids occasionally gripe that they have it tough, get them this book and show them what the word means. Alyssa A. Lappen




2. Freedman has collected dozens of black and white photographs taken by Lewis Hine during the first decades of the twentieth century. Hine worked as an investigational photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC). The NCLC wanted the United States government to pass laws concerning child labor, and thought that photos of the work children did would be more effective persuaders than mere speeches and statistics. Hine traveled the nation with his camera taking photographs, sometimes despite risk to his person.

   The text of the book serves partly as a brief biography of Lewis Hine, and partly as explanatory backdrop for the scenes in the photographs. Freeman gives enough background information to put the images in their context, but not so much data as to overwhelm the reader. The machines, tools and environments are so strange to the modern eye that without clarification, many pictures would be meaningless.

   The most shocking photographs in the collection are of the young boys involved in the coalmines. The filth on their faces, hands and clothing is astonishing. By comparison, the dangers and deplorable conditions of working in a cotton mill are not as readily apparent as those of working in a coal mine. However, reading Freeman's text exposes the dangers of moving machinery and smothering lint and humidity not so clear in the photos.

   The book concludes by sharing the changes in child labor laws that Hine's photographs helped bring about, as well as information on the child labor situation of today.

   This book is full of eye opening and shocking information for the unaware. School may be hard, but without child labor laws things could be so much worse.




3. This is a nonfiction photographic essay book that will touch any reader's heart. Mr. Freedman seems to know the facts and life of Mr. Hine very well. There is an extensive bibliography at the end of the book as wee. The information at the end seemed hard to believe but true. The book is only 11 years old so the facts aren't that dated. There are many saddening facts in this book. It reveals the truths about child labor in the text and photos.
   The book was written to shine light on child labor history and to showcase some of Mr. Hine's photographs. The book is very interesting to read. There are quotes from some kids who worked in the factories and also some quotes from Mr. Hine who took great pride in accurately recording the facts about his subjects. This book could spark an interest in further study of this topic.
   The information in this book is broken down and presented in an understandable order. The text is a harsh reality but it is presented well. The style gets the reader emotionally involved. The language is relatively simple and easy to read.
   The information is laid out well and the references are listed in the back. There is a table of contents and bibliography and acknowledgement page.
   The photos are a wonderful enhancement. The book would be nothing with out them. They are strategically placed and make the book what it is. There are captions that describe the pictures and they are discussed in the text.
   This book could be used in the classroom to show what life was like and to talk about immigration and economic conditions.



4. 
   Lewis Hine was a photographer who took pictures of young children at work. There were many different jobs that children held during the late 1800's into the early 1900's. Hine's photographs were extremely powerful. Each photograph provided information about the types of jobs children held and gave some family history. The majority of the children had little to no education because their parents relied on them to work and earn an income. Many of the factories preferred the work of younger children compared to adults because the children were quicker and were too young to complain. Hine has displayed photos in this book of children as young as four years old shucking oysters. The most dangerous job that was portrayed in the book was coal mining, unfortunately it was also the best paying job; a child had to be at least fourteen to perform the tasks. Parents often lied about their child's age to get them into the mines. The book would have been just as powerful without any of the information. The pictures were enough to convey the children's stories. Russell Freedman has done a wonderful job putting this book together. Seeing the children physically working was moving and emotional, which helped the author get his point across.



5. This soft-cover book is written like a children's textbook, but Hine's photos look great all throughout. There are quite a few full-page prints, roughly 8x6 sized. I'm very satisfied with the purchase; only Aperture would print a book with better quality reproductions, and that's out of my price range right now.

5 comments about Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream.

1. Excellently written - I flew through this book. The story--her hunt for a white collar job--is so depressing. For those unlucky-enough to be cast-aside without prospects, the road back to employment is pretty dreary. Between ineffective career coaches, pointless networking sessions, and commission-only sales jobs, I wonder how anyone can stay sane during the ordeal...



2. I will start this off by saying I *loved* "Nickeled and Dimed". I worked in low-end retail jobs for years and was surrounded by the kind of people she profiled, who had slipped through the cracks and couldn't climb back up. But this book was riddled with problems.
   
   She wants to write an expose on white-collar jobs, but then couldn't get one. At some point she should have re-pitched the book, retitled it, and made it solely about job hunting. As it is, she starts off talking about A, then couldn't get A, and awkwardly spends the rest of the book talking about B.
   
   And honestly, she didn't do a very good job with B. She tried to get a job as a PR worker to illustrate how hard it is to get a white collar job, but I would have had more sympathy for her if she had actually done that search correctly. She didn't research the jargon she should have known or the subjects she should have been talking about.
   
   She pitched herself, over and over again, with this phrase she thought up about PR being about starting fires, not just putting them out. She talks like this is some kind of clever insight, like this line would get a HR rep thinking, but my first reaction was "DUH". I have worked with plenty of PR people, and NONE of them were ever employed to "put out" a fire. (Companies respond to PR problems by ignoring them, because they know you'll forget everything soon enough.) Every PR person I've worked with knew their job was to "start fires" 8 hours a day. What's especially baffling is that *she's an author*! She must be dealing with PR people every single day! How could she not have known how they talk or what they do? Why does she think they're professional cover-up scandal-spinners?
   
   So the book about white collar America turned into a book about finding a job, but really, it was about people who weren't competent enough to find one.



3. Barbara Ehrenreich is right: there really is a crisis going on, a "hidden" crisis if you will, although I'm beginning to think this is more of a case of sheer denial.
   
   I can't imagine why any person, knowing the odds, would choose to work in the white-collar "business," i.e. administrative world. There is no security in jobs nowadays, but even less in such work environs. I would certainly never pursue a Masters in Business as I had once envisioned, especially now that I have seen several people I know personally, struggle to find new jobs after mass layoffs.
   
   The entire business of business nowdays seems nothing more than a pyramid scheme, and the hard-working American worker is nothing but a pawn. As Ehrenreich also pointed out, the blame is always placed on the employee. You're either not trying hard enough to "sell" yourself, or you're not wearing the right shades of lipstick. (Nonsense!) I've also noted myself how temp agencies try to blame the employee in this manner.
   
   It's strange how in the past, workers at the top used to take less in pay to keep those around who were lower on the rung, but even that doesn't happen anymore, not in today's sleek and cruel "dog eat dog" world. People should take a look at their priorities and realise that this life isn't all about themselves.



4. OK, so it may be that the blue and pink collar work force is easier to love than middle management. It may be that the real heroism in this country is found closer to the poverty line then to middle management. Certainly, it is clear that Barbara Ehrenreich believes this to be true. A comparison of Bait and Switch with her earlier Nickel and Dimed demonstrated that while Ehrenreich finds much to lament in the plight of the working class, she generally finds the corporate world laughable and the white collar unemployed closer to pathetic than tragic. Perhaps these are defensible stances, but not when you present yourself, which she shamelessly and unironically does at one point, as deeply compassionate and empathetic, or as the scholarly investigative writer she equally believes herself to represent.
   
   I am always at least a bit put off by investigative writers and documentarians who put themselves at the heart of the story they tell. While it may be necessary to assume a disguise when penetrating a secretive organization or particularly shadowy corporation, surely at least some of the middle class unemployed are not unwilling to speak frankly about their experiences and expectations. Why would stories told in the real voices of the unemployed be less compelling or insightful than Ehrenreich's own? But, putting this initial, and only slight objection aside (it is fun, after all, to read the narrative of a complete outsider penetrating a new world, even if not entirely convincing) my major objection to this book is how callously Ehrenreich dismisses the unemployed workers she interacts with as automatons and gullible fools. Ehrenreich's time spent among job coaches and consultants as an ersatz job seeker causes her to deride the industry as filled with "victim blamers" who cause the unemployed to question their own self worth rather than external forces like the market and unethical corporations that might be equally culpable.
   
   However, more subtly but equally insidiously, Ehrenreich spends much of the book engaging in equally cold victim blaming: after all, she implies, only the truly stupid and unaware would fall into obvious traps like image consulting and faith-based networking when looking for a new position. Unlike the working class, Ehrenreich seems to suggest, these people should know better. Of course, she never stops to consider that many job seekers likely don't go the route she takes when looking for a new position. I have known a few of the unemployed middle class, at least one of whom was recently without work for more than a year, and none used the myriad methods Ehrenreich so condescendingly employs. But more importantly, are those who do use such methods really to be mocked rather than pitied? Desperation makes even very smart, very capable people fall pray to illogical behavior. Surely this is a demonstration of how much these people want to find employment, not of their congenital stupidity.
   
   But by far the most egregious assumption made by Ehrenreich is that she is not only utterly qualified for a corporate position, but that she is over-qualified. I noticed a similar, although slightly less pervasive suggestion, in Nickel and Dimed. In that book, she mentions that nobody who interviewed or hired her ever commented on her education or that she was a writer. Gee. I've known someone with three degrees, two of them Master's, and two very prestigious schools on her resume who spent the past year working at a minimum wage job in Chicago because nobody wants an historian or a English professor. Maybe the reason nobody hiring her asked about her qualifications is because they see it all the time, and it says absolutely nothing for the applicant's ability to clean toilets or fold shirts. In this newer book, Ehrenreich is even more insulting. She seems to think that people should be lining up to hire someone with her not very impressive sounding and MADE UP credentials. Can't imagine why nobody jumped at the opportunity presented there. I wonder how she would react to a typical corporate-type who showed up at her door, insisted they were qualified to be a co-author on her next project, and then provided a falsified resume to strengthen their assertion. Surely, she would explain the many hours, even years, which went into honing her craft. She would talk about training and education, the commitment needed to get up every day and write a book. But, she thinks so little of the profession she attempts to enter that she assumes her skills are not only transferable, but better than.
   
   Alright, admittedly, this is a really long review and diatribe. And all this being said, I do think there is a great deal in the corporate world that should be changed. I agree with Ehrenreich that we should be marching for health care coverage, and to remove more bias from the workplace. The state of the unemployed from all walks of life is lamentable, and I hope never to find myself back in the grind of job-hunting or working in the corporate world, either as a member of middle management or a blue-collar worker. But, I also think that the academic and non-profit worlds are generally out of touch and condescending. I find it hypocritical to assume that anyone with half a brain, or a conscience, would follow the same path you yourself have taken. There are good people who end up corporate managers, born-again Christians, and Republicans. Really. And if Ehrenreich has no empathy for the middle class, she shouldn't write about them while professing something else entirely.



5. I loved Nickel and Dimed and was happy to find this book. As with her other book, Ehrenreich comes across as a very sincere and compassionate person. She is funny, too, and makes the book enjoyable.
   Not sure if I completely buy into her viewpoint and am left wondering how her job search was so futile.
   All in all, a good book about real life in the U.S.A.