Connecticut
Barker, Corinne M. “Connecticut’s Share in Furnishing Munitions for the World War.” Unpublished Masters’ Thesis, Columbia University, 1925. (Interesting narrative account of the prosperous war industries in the major manufacturing cities in the state. Good section on women. Available at Connecticut State Library.)
Bucki, Cecelia F. “Dilution of the Craft Tradition: Bridgeport Connecticut Munitions Workers, 1915-1919,”
Social Science History
4 (February, 1980): 105-124. (Scholarly treatment of changing work patterns and rash of strikes during the war. Valuable bibliography.)
Connecticut.
Report of the Bureau of Labor on The Conditions of Wage
Earning Women and Girls, 1914
. State Printing Office, 1914. (Valuable Primary source material in the form of statistics in charts and tables. 1914 focus on department store workers. Contains 15 pages of interviews with department store employees.)
—————.
Report of the Bureau of Labor on The Conditions of Wage
Earning Women and Girls, 1916. State Printing Office, 1916. (Primary source materials on women in the following industries:. munitions, laundry, hotels, restaurants, drug stores, telephone.)
————.
Report of the Commission to lnvestigate the Conditions
of Wage Earning Women and Minors. State Printing Office, 1913. (Describes women at work in the cotton, corset, silk, metal and rubber factories. Very valuable statistics and charts.)
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Report of the Bureau of Labor on the Conditions of Wage
Earners in the State. State Printing Office, 1914, 1916, 1918, 1920. (Each publication has a table listing all strikes during the 2 year span and the result of the strike. All these publications available in the Connecticut State Library.)
Edwards, Alba M.
The Labor Legislation of Connecticut
. New York: Macmillan Co., 1907. (A scholarly monograph published by the American Economic Association Edwards traces state labor legislation from 1842 to 1906 and shows the strength of organized labor in the legislature.)
Hartford, Connecticut. Connecticut State Library. Council of Defense, 1917-1919. Record Group 20, Box 46. (This R.G. contains publicity photographs of women workers during the war. Can be reproduced.)
—————. Works Project Administration, 1933-1935. Record Group 33. The History of Labor in Connecticut. Boxes 199-200. (Rich source of primary materials. Includes unpublished manuscript by Bernard Wolfe on Connecticut labor history. Also includes a compilation by Anthony McKenna of all articles in the Hartford Courant and Hartford Times between 1913 and 1920 concerning labor.)
Hewes, Amy.
Women as Munition Makers: A Study of Conditions in
Bridgeport, Connecticut. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1917. (Interesting study of the changes brought by the war to the lives of workers in Bridgeport. Little on strikes, but good on working conditions of the ordinary people. The purpose of the book was to get labor laws strengthened.)
United States
Baxandall, Rosalyn, Gordon, Linda, and Reverby, Susan, eds.
America’s Working Women: A Documentary History 1600 to the
Present
. New York: Vintage Books, 1976. (A socialist feminist view of working women. Good short background information in introduction as well as informative transitions to the vast collection of excellent primary documents.)
Davies, Margery. “Woman’s Place is at the Typewriter: The Feminization of the Clerical Labor Force,” in
Capitalist
Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism
ed. by Zillah R. Eisenstien. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979. (Draws parallels between dilution of trade in factories and in offices and considers clerical workers as part of the working class. Describes the change from a male to female dominated clerical labor force.)
Degler, Carl.
At Odds: Women and the FAmily in America from the
Revolution to the Present
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. (Describes the relationship between changing family patterns nad the increase of women working outside the home. Very readable account of different attitudes of women and men to trade unions, life on the farm, professions and careers.)
Gordon, Ann D., Buhle, Mari Jo, and Dye, Nancy Schrom.
Women in
American Society
. Massachusetts: New England Free Press, 1972. (A pamphlet describing the role of women in our society from an economic point of view. Scholarly approach.)
Greenwald, Maurine Weiner.
Women, War, and Work: The Impact of
World War I on Women Workers in the United States
. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1980. (Key source which shows the technological, societal, and economic forces which change the nature of work and how this was accelerated by WW I. Draws on ideas of dilution of trade, consequent losses of control in the work place and the parallel growth in the unions. Case studies of women on the railroads, as street car conductors, and telephone operators. Excellent source. Extensive bibliography.)
United States Bureau of the Census. Census figures for Connecticut were drawn from the
Tenth
,
Eleventh
,
Twelfth
,
Thirteenth
, and
Fourteenth
Censuses. Starting in 1900, the statistics on the number of workers in each employment sector divided by state are found in the separate “Occupations” volume.
United States Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, Number 12.
The New Position of Women in American Industry
. Government Printing Office, 1920. (Valuable for statistics and charts on the World War I period.)