Working women in TBSL books

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Working women in TBSL books

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1LibraryPerilous
Oct 23, 2014, 5:32 pm

Recently, I finished Wired Love and Fanny Herself, both of which I thought represented women's careers very well. It made me wonder what other late 19th and early 20th century fiction featuring working women is out there. I confess to a particular fondness for shop girl stories. I'd love to read High Wages if I can track down a copy. Are there any other titles that stand out?

22wonderY
Oct 27, 2014, 12:08 pm

Isn't Edna Ferber wonderful?

You might like to read Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott, which I believe reflected Alcott's own efforts at employment outside of the home.

Great topic! Scurrying to find examples.

3LibraryPerilous
Oct 27, 2014, 12:13 pm

>2 2wonderY: Oh, thanks for that recommendation. I've been interested in Alcott's experiences since I stumbled on this quote: "Jo should have remained a literary spinster, but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she marry Laurie or somebody, that I didn't dare refuse, but out of perversity went and made a funny match for her." Apparently, her editor also pushed her to create more 'wholesome' stories.

I definitely am going to read more Ferber, and very soon.

42wonderY
Oct 27, 2014, 2:46 pm

Another Ferber title, Dawn O'Hara is a newspaper reporter. And I think the youngest generation of The Girls has a career, but I don't recall specifics.

Kathleen Norris' heroines generally start out as working girls, but I would classify them as morality tales. Some of Grace S. Richmond's women are working women; nurses, reporters, a portrait photographer.

5MerryMary
Oct 30, 2014, 1:09 am

I have loved Fanny Herself ever since I found a very old banged up copy of it in my high school library. (This was long ago - the 1960s - but of course the book is much older than that.) I rediscovered it a few years ago and have my very own copy. I can't explain why I love it, but I do.

62wonderY
Oct 30, 2014, 10:15 am

re: non-fiction

You might enjoy reading something by Jane Addams. As well as being one of the first social workers herself, she understood the educational needs of inner-city women and set up night schools to help the poor to become equiped for better employment.

I own The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets and Jane Addams: A Centennial Reader.

7MDGentleReader
Oct 30, 2014, 10:24 am

Lucilla Andrews wrote nursing romances. She initally wrote about nursing, but they didn't sell until she added the romance angle. They are very detailed about what it is like to train as a nurse and to do different kinds of nursing. For younger readers there are the Sue Barton books, also about nursing.

8fuzzi
Modifié : Nov 4, 2014, 9:41 am

Would a working woman, who ran a farm by herself, count?

I just finished reading The Lone Winter by Anne Bosworth Greene. It was a journal written by a woman who chose to spend an entire winter alone on her farm, set in the mountains of Vermont.

In my review I wrote: "while I generally don't particularly enjoy "descriptive" literature (James Fenimore Cooper comes to mind), this work was fun to read, as the author described not only the beauty of the seasons, but the wildlife, the farm animals, and the mundane issues of her home as well. She was an artist with her choice of words."

9thorold
Nov 5, 2014, 5:20 am

Mary Renault, who later became a very well-known writer of historical fiction, wrote several early novels that were basically nurse-doctor romances drawing on her experience of working as a nurse in the thirties. The first one, Purposes of love has a great deal in it about nursing training and the conditions nurses were supposed to put up with at the time. Renault was already a university graduate and had worked for some time in the theatre before she went to nursing school, so she's quite critical about all the quasi-monastic Florence Nightingale mystique of nursing. (And of course she manages to insert several lesbian, gay, and bisexual characters, which you don't really expect to find in a pre-war romance...)

10quartzite
Nov 13, 2014, 9:24 pm

The Homemaker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher is about a woman who ends up supporting her family--I think working at a department store, and her husband who would be happy to keep house, but for the social scorn they both endure.

11JerryMmm
Nov 14, 2014, 4:17 am

That's still something of an issue, 90 years later.. Part of it is language, people generally are fine with the concept, but there are still people who think a woman should be at home.

122wonderY
Nov 17, 2014, 2:28 pm

Now I'm noticing just how many tattered heroines are from the upper classes.

However...

Hannah Parmalee in White Banners begins as a door-to-door sales person and is hired on as housekeeper and all-around mother substitute in the Ward household.

13SylviaC
Nov 17, 2014, 3:25 pm

In Miranda by Grace Livingston Hill, Miranda is a servant to a lawyer and his wife (who were introduced in another book). She is a wonderful heroine: outspoken, independent, and both physically and emotionally strong.

14MrsLee
Nov 18, 2014, 12:16 am

Not really your typical TBSL book, but I was thinking of the Wimsey mystery novels by Dorothy L. Sayers, written in the 30s. I can think of two women right off the bat who were working women and not from the upper class. Miss Climpson is a woman who has been a companion for most of her years IIRC, he recruits her to be an undercover agent, and she does it marvelously well, going on to form her own agency of women. Then there is Harriet Vane, his love interest. She is from a decidedly common background, and has worked her way into becoming a somewhat celebrated author of mystery novels before she meets up with Wimsey.

15streamsong
Nov 18, 2014, 8:57 am

Some classics:

Scarlett O'Hara - ran a store, a lumberyard and a plantation
Jane Eyre - governess
Agnes Grey school teacher/governess

And I have a copy of one of Mom's favorite books from the 20's/30's called The Flapper Wife about a very liberated woman typist.

16fuzzi
Nov 18, 2014, 7:27 pm

>15 streamsong: good catch, remembering about Scarlett's jobs before she made enough money to not have to work.

172wonderY
Nov 19, 2014, 8:18 am

Yes, but do we hear about the actualities of the work? I think Diana was asking for examples where the work itself is part of the story.

18LibraryPerilous
Nov 19, 2014, 11:30 am

Thanks, everyone. All the titles sound very interesting! Where to start? The TBR list ballooning continues ...

I'd forgotten: I have My Brilliant Career on my Kindle.

>17 2wonderY: Yes, that was something I liked about the Thayer and Ferber books. I'm flexible, though.

>11 JerryMmm: Yes.

>8 fuzzi: My mom loves this type of book. She had quite a few on her shelves when I was growing up.

>14 MrsLee: I didn't like the first book in the Wimsey series, but I've heard good things about Gaudy Night. Would you recommend reading it as a stand alone?

192wonderY
Nov 19, 2014, 11:39 am

>8 fuzzi: And I just received my own copy (author autographed!) of The Lone Winter. I dove in and nearly froze my nose with the serious winter descriptives. Thanks fuzzi!

20fuzzi
Nov 19, 2014, 8:39 pm

Happy to share, Ruth, enjoy!

21MrsLee
Nov 23, 2014, 12:11 am

>18 LibraryPerilous: I think it would be best to try the love trilogy in order, which would be Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, then Gaudy Night. It is a slow build of a relationship. However, some people simply don't like Wimsey. I think the trilogy is the best chance to like him if you are on the wall about it. I adore him, so it is hard for me to imagine! :)

222wonderY
Déc 10, 2016, 9:21 am

BonnieJune just reminded me that Shirley in The Enchanted Barn is a stenographer. Hmmm. Might have to re-read this lovely book.

23MDGentleReader
Déc 10, 2016, 5:53 pm

Judith Teaches by Mabel Esther Allen is about a young woman and her two friend's early in their teaching careers. It is one of the bodley head career books for girls and presents staff room tensions, discipline challenges and the differences in teaching style between the 3 young women.

Here We Go Round by the same author describes a young woman working as a nursery helper in the slums of a large city before she heads for nursery school teacher training. There is no sugar coating of the very real problems faced by families living in poverty.

24Sakerfalcon
Déc 12, 2016, 10:10 am

Lucy Carmichael is the story of a young woman who goes to work at a drama college after being disappointed in love. I really enjoyed her self discovery and the intrigues in the college power structure.