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The Heart of Capitalism: Contested Visions of Labor Reform in Lurana Sheldon's Department Store Novels

The Heart of Capitalism: Contested Visions of Labor Reform in Lurana Sheldon's Department Store... Ashley Elizabeth Palmer Indiana University Bloomington n 6 May 1890, the Working Women's Society (wws) of New York sponsored a meeting at Chickering Hall to protest working conditions in the city's department stores. Although it was led by middle-class men, the meeting obliquely featured one woman's voice when a male speaker read wws secretary Alice Woodbridge's harrowing account of the "miseries of the poor women" working in department stores ("To Help"). Woodbridge's "Report on the Condition of Working Women in New York Retail Stores" details physical and emotional hardships ranging from exhausting working hours to repulsive sanitary conditions. The circumstances she reveals were so extreme that speakers at the meeting pronounced their reform efforts "a battle for humanity" to "struggle for the emancipation of these poor women" ("To Help"). The meeting's goal was to expose the hardships of shopgirl labor to middle-class consumers who typically experienced department stores from only the other side of the counter. But although reformers arranged the meeting to enlighten middle-class consumers, the majority of attendees were in fact shopgirls. Demonstrably invested in their own welfare, shopgirls showed up in such large numbers that one news story observed that "there were more shop girls http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers University of Nebraska Press

The Heart of Capitalism: Contested Visions of Labor Reform in Lurana Sheldon's Department Store Novels

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Publisher
University of Nebraska Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 The University of Nebraska Press.
ISSN
1534-0643
Publisher site
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Abstract

Ashley Elizabeth Palmer Indiana University Bloomington n 6 May 1890, the Working Women's Society (wws) of New York sponsored a meeting at Chickering Hall to protest working conditions in the city's department stores. Although it was led by middle-class men, the meeting obliquely featured one woman's voice when a male speaker read wws secretary Alice Woodbridge's harrowing account of the "miseries of the poor women" working in department stores ("To Help"). Woodbridge's "Report on the Condition of Working Women in New York Retail Stores" details physical and emotional hardships ranging from exhausting working hours to repulsive sanitary conditions. The circumstances she reveals were so extreme that speakers at the meeting pronounced their reform efforts "a battle for humanity" to "struggle for the emancipation of these poor women" ("To Help"). The meeting's goal was to expose the hardships of shopgirl labor to middle-class consumers who typically experienced department stores from only the other side of the counter. But although reformers arranged the meeting to enlighten middle-class consumers, the majority of attendees were in fact shopgirls. Demonstrably invested in their own welfare, shopgirls showed up in such large numbers that one news story observed that "there were more shop girls

Journal

Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers – University of Nebraska Press

Published: Jun 20, 2017

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