The Whitewater Historical Society will host a public reception for its temporary exhibit, At Home on the Job: Women’s Work 1830-1930, on Wed., Sept. 24, at 7pm at the Depot Museum (301 W. Whitewater St, Whitewater). Nikki Mandell, Associate Professor of History at UWW and guest curator for this exhibit, will talk about the exhibit’s themes. From the Society’s Sept. 2014 newsletter:
The exhibit explores the evolving nature and meaning of women’s work in the home during a century of change, from the 1830s to 1920. Although women’s productive labor remained essential to family and community survival throughout the 19th century, two factors – industrialization and the rise of the Victorian ideal – significantly changed the content and social value placed on that work. Using the Society’s collections and representative circumstances found in the lives of Whitewater women, the exhibit examines a long-held complaint, first voiced by Martha Ballard in her 1795 diary entry, that “a woman’s work is never done.”
Are you interested in learning more? Search Research@UWW to find Library holdings of books, including Mother-work: Women, child welfare, and the state, 1890-1930 (3rd-floor Main Collection, HV741 .L33 1994), Woman and labor (3rd-floor Main Collection, HQ1381 .S42 or online via Google Books), and Out to work: A history of wage-earning women in the United States (3rd-floor Main Collection, HD6095 .K449 1982).
Articles may be found by searching Research@UWW or articles databases such as America: History and Life.
Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding additional resources.
