Emily Westkaemper. Selling Women’s History: Packaging Feminism in Twentieth-Century American Popular Culture.

2018 ◽  
Vol 123 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-250
Author(s):  
Bonnie J. Dow
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Women's History ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
Women’S History

scholarly journals Subtle invasions: Aspects of Samoan women's wartime experiences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Saui'a Louise Marie Tuimanuolo Mataia-Milo
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Women's History ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Effect Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Women’S Agency ◽  
Sexual Encounters ◽  
Women’S History

<p>During World War Two the peaceful “occupation” of the Samoa Islands by US Forces combined with existing colonial conditions to transform the lives of Samoans in important yet also subtle ways. Drawing on thirty two oral history interviews and the papers of the colonial administrations this thesis examines the wartime lives of Samoan women. Their accounts of their experiences reveal how they understood the war at the time and after years of life experience. Using approaches from social history and women’s history this thesis illustrates women’s agency in finding ways to manage the new social contexts and situations created by the war.  The central argument of this thesis is that it was the ordinary business of negotiating daily life during the war that engaged and normalised social changes. These mundane everyday acts were significant historical moments that wove new and unique motifs into the tapestry of Samoan women’s history. The war brought to Samoa a multitude of American servicemen who saw Samoa through a ‘romantic’ lens as an arcadia of unrestrained social mores. In contrast, through this research Samoan women reveal their wartime experiences in their own words. The women’s narratives indicate that the war interrupted lives in many ways causing them to rethink their roles in response to the changes.  The four areas of Samoan women’s lives that this thesis examines are their roles in their families and communities, their involvement with the churches, their engagement with wartime popular culture and lastly their wartime sexual encounters. The discussion opens with a portrait of Samoan society during the 1920s and 1930s, depicting the social and political forces that shaped women’s lives and influenced their understandings of their wartime experiences. This discussion highlights how colonial entanglements had a bearing on the different trajectories that women’s lives took during the war. The thesis then turns to explore the arrival of the war, examining the women’s initial experiences and reactions with a particular focus on what they learnt from their experiences and how they adapted to change in the context of their communities and families. The study finds that social transformation was a response to the war’s disruption of physical and cultural space and the critical structures and ideologies that are central to Samoans’ way of life.  The second part of this enquiry examines how wartime circumstances affected Samoan women’s sometimes tense relations with the Christian churches. The churches occupied a central place in Samoan society as a provider of both spiritual nurture and secular education for women during the war years, so they deserve specific attention. Wartime conditions created opportunities that expanded and rejuvenated the scope of Samoan women’s agency which had been marginalised and narrowed by Christian influence before the war. At the same time, the war heightened the pre-war tensions between Samoan women’s agency and the power of the churches. Despite the clergy’s reluctance, the churches provided spaces in which American troops socialised with the Samoan population, creating social situations that were difficult to control.  The third area analyses Samoan women’s engagement with wartime popular culture and how the consumption of introduced material culture galvanised their autonomy and enabled them to tailor social transformation to suit their personal perceptions. Wartime popular culture in its many forms contributed to the rapid absorption of new ideas and the adaptation of cultural practices. Women’s engagement with this popular culture resulted in ‘on the ground changes’ that stimulated social transformation and which should be appreciated as significant historical moments in their own right.  The fourth area of discussion investigates Samoan women’s wartime sexual encounters. The perception that Samoan women’s sexual encounters with American servicemen were characterised by an unrestrained morality on their part ignores other factors that shaped these encounters, including violence and their own bodily knowledge and preparedness. This study shows that Samoan women had a variety of sexual encounters during the war and their narratives speak volumes about the pains of such life-changing moments.  There was no single or archetypal wartime experience. The thirty two interviewees experienced the war in different parts of the Samoa islands and their social and political alignment has influenced their perceptions and understanding of their wartime lives. The social transformation brought by the war involved considered responses from the women who sought to balance personal and family interests and Samoan values. Exploring the women’s wartime lives reveals their resilience and their ability to overcome difficulties and effect change for the better of their community.</p>

From the Archives: Women's History in Baker Library's Business Manuscripts Collection

2000 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-476
Author(s):  
Laura Cochrane
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Women's History ◽  
Business History ◽  
Large Firms ◽  
Big Business ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Successful Business ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Women’S History

“[O]ur ladies know nothing of the sober certainties which relate to money and they cannot be taught,” wrote Frederic Tudor in 1820, in a sweeping indictment of women's financial abilities that was common for the period. Despite such stereotypes, many women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries participated in commerce, both as merchants and as manufacturers. Because they mainly oversaw small and shortlived concerns, however, their enterprises did not fit into traditional understandings of successful business, either in their own time or later, when the field of business history developed in the twentieth century. As a consequence, when Harvard Business School's Baker Library began amassing business manuscripts, curators generally concentrated on collecting the records of large firms and well-known industrialists. Their big-business bias not only affected what was collected, but also how manuscripts were processed. Search aids and cataloging records did not distinguish materials made by or about women because gender was not a compelling issue for early twentieth-century historians.

Errata

Urban History ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-168
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Infant Death ◽  
Research Funding ◽  
Women's History ◽  
The Third ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Women’S History

‘Suburbia and infant death in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Adelaide’ by Philippa Mein Smith and Lionel Frost, volume 21 pt. 2 (October 1994) pp. 251-272.The publisher very much regrets that proof corrections were not incorporated in this article, and it thus included a number of errors.On page 251, line 20 should read ‘… various institutions which provided research funding and access to material’. In footnote 3, lines 1 and 3, ‘womens’ history’ should read ‘women's history’.Ten lines were missing that should have been represented on page 267. There were also eight lines repeated on pages 267-268 and an extra footnote 41 placed at the bottom of page 267, with a reference to footnote 42 that in fact refers to footnote 46 on page 268. We reproduce below the corrected text from the beginning of the third paragraph of page 266 to the end of the first paragraph on page 268. The above page references refer to the original article.

Editorial Note: Protest and Dissent in Twentieth-Century Women's History

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-11
Author(s):  
Elisa Camiscioli ◽  
Jean H. Quataert
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Women's History ◽  
Editorial Note ◽  
Women’S History
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