The Working Girl Problem in Twentieth-Century New York and Dorothy Richardson’s The Long Day 1905

Year 2018, Issue: 48, 64 - 84, 01.04.2018

Emine Geçgil

Abstract

At the turn of the twentieth century, wage-earning women in progressive America had to succumb to a vicious, precarious system in which they were disadvantaged when compared to their male counterparts. In an attempt to illuminate on the working girl problem in big cities, Dorothy Richardson, a reporter from the New York Herald, took up undercover investigative journalism, publishing her experiences in The Long Day: The Story of a New York Working Girl 1905 . In her novel, Richardson stipulates trades-training and reminds her readers of the necessity of protective legislation. Introducing the life of her heroine as desirable, she emphasizes the value of a strenuous life, showing her readers how to climb up the social ladder towards the American dream

Keywords

Progressive Era, Women’s Labor Movement, Protective Legislation, Women’s Writing, Dorothy Richardson

irminci Yüzyılın Başlarında New York’ta Çalışan Kadın İşçiler Sorunu ve Dorothy Richardson’ın Romanı The Long Day 1905

Abstract

20. yüzyılın başlarını da içine alan Progresif Dönemin Amerika’sında, kadın işçiler iş hayatında kadın-erkek eşitsizliğinin yaratmış olduğu ataerkil düzene boyun eğmek durumunda kalmış, erkeklere oranla çok daha zorlu koşullar altında çalışmak zorunda bırakılmıştır. Bu dönemde New York Herald gazetesi muhabirlerinden Dorothy Richardson büyük şehirde çalışan genç kadın sorununa ışık tutmak amacıyla kılık değiştirerek araştırmacı gazeteciliğe yönelmiş ve yaşadıklarını kurgusal unsurlarla harmanlayıp The Long Day: The Story of a New York Working Girl 1905 romanında anlatmıştır. Richardson yazdığı bu romanda meslek eğitiminin önemine değinirken aynı zamanda okuyucularına kadın işçilere yönelik koruyucu yasaların gerekliliğini hatırlatır. Kadın kahramanın hayatını özendirerek anlatan yazar, çalışmanın ve emeğin değerini vurgulayarak, Amerikan rüyasına erişmenin yollarını okuyucuyla paylaşır

Keywords

Progresif Dönem, Kadın İşçi Hareketleri, Koruyucu Yasalar, Kadın Yazını, Dorothy Richardson

References

• Abbott, Edith. Women in Industry: A Study in Economic History. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1909. Print.
• Baker, Elizabeth. Protective Labor Legislation. New York: Colombia University Press. 1925. Print.
• Banner, Lois W. Women in Modern America: A Brief History. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovic, 1984. Print.
• Blakemore, Jessica. She Works Hard for the Money: Working Women and Public Discourse at the Turn of the Century. MA Thesis, Sarah Lawrence College, 2009. Print.
• Broyles, Janell. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. New York: Rosen Publishing Group, 2004. Print.
• Bularzik, Mary J. “The Bonds of Belonging Leonora O’Reilly and Social Reform.” Social and Moral Reform. Ed. Nancy F. Cott. Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 1994. 464–487. Print.
• Butler, Elizabeth Beardsley. Women and the Trades: Pittsburgh, 1907– 1908. New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1911. Print.
• Chicago Vice Commission. The Social Evil in Chicago. Chicago: Gunthorp-Warren, 1911. Print.
• Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. New York: Vintage Books, 2004. Print.
• Eisenstein, Sarah. Give Us Bread but Give us Roses. New York: Routledge, 1983. Print.
• Fahs, Alice. Out on Assignment: Newspaper Women and the Making of Modern Public Space. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2011. Print.
• Halverson, Cathryn. “The Fascination of the Working Girl: Dorothy Richardson’s The Long Day.” American Studies 40.1 (1999): 95–115. Print.
• Hapke, Laura. Tales of the Working Girl: Wage-Earning Women in American Literature, 1890–1925. Farmington Hills: Twayne Publishers, 1992. Print.
• Libbey, Laura Jean. Leonie Locke; or The Romances of a Beautiful Working-Girl. New York: J. S. Oglivie, 1884. Print.
• London, Jack. No Mentor but Myself: Jack London on Writers and Writing. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Print.
• Peterson, Joyce Shaw. “Working Girls and Millionaires: The Melodramatic Romances of Laura Jean Libbey.” American Studies 24.1 (1983): 19–35. Print.
• Powers, Jane Bernard. The “Girl Question” in Education: Vocational Education for Young Women in the Progressive Era, Vol. 73. London: Routledge, 2012. Print.
• Richardson, Dorothy. The Long Day: The Story of a New York Working Girl, as Told by Herself. New York: Century Co., 1905. Print.
• ---. The Book of Blanche. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1924. Print.
• ---. “The Difficulties and Dangers Confronting the Working Woman.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 27 (1906): 162–164. Print.
• ---. “Trades-Unions in Petticoats.” Leslie’s Monthly Magazine 57 (1904): 491–499. Print.
• ---. “Work or Starve: Woman’s Heartbreaking Search for Employment in the Great City of New York: Personal Experience of Doroth Adams Reveals the Bitter Struggle of the Would-BeBreadwinners of Her Sex, New York Herald, December 23, 1900.
• Rosenberg, Carroll-Smith. “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in the Nineteenth-Century America.” Women’s America: Refocusing the Past. Eds. Linda K. Kerber and Jane New York: Oxford UP, 2004. 168–183. Print.
• Rosenberg, Rosalind. Divided Lives: American Women in the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan, 2008. Print.
• Schocket, Eric. Vanishing Moments: Class and American Literature. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2006. Print.
• Sklar, Kathryn Kish. “Florence Kelley and Women’s Activism in Progressive Era.” Women’s America: Refocusing the Past. Eds. Linda K. Kerber and Jane Sherron DeHart. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. 327–339. Print.
• Sondik, Cindy Aron. Introduction. The Long Day: The Story of a New York Working Girl, by Dorothy Richardson. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 1990. ix–xxxvi. Print.
• Tax, Meredith. The Rising of the Women: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 18801917. Champaign: U of Illinois P, 1980. Print.