Now hiring

the long version

In Now Hiring, historian Julia Kirk Blackwelder adroitly traces the evolution of the American occupational structure, delineating the main lines of the development of the female work force and its interactions with education, family life, and social convention. Through vignettes of individual women, given context by statistical data that place them within larger patterns of work and family life, Blackwelder presents her arguments "with flesh on them." She offers a pioneering consideration of non-paid employment as part of the picture of women and work and incorporates an intriguing case study of the evolution of the Girl Scout organization. Her consideration of the interaction of race, class, gender, and economic forces in the evolving roles of working women also makes an intellectual contribution to the field of women's studies. In her conclusion, Blackwelder summarizes the effects of a century of change in women's employment and examines the social and economic challenges that will confront women and families of the twenty-first century.