Women and Work

The Women and Work Research Group formed in December, 1978 when the American Sociological Association’s Problems in the Discipline Committee gave Natalie Sokoloff, Christine E. Bose, and Roslyn Feldberg a grant to study women’s work experiences. The grant gave financial support for Sokoloff, Bose, and Feldberg to organize a group of 12 women scholars in a variety of fields, including historians, sociologists, economists, anthropologists, and psychologists, to share their respective work on the topic. The group had enough funding for two weekend meetings. They first met in March, 1979 and went on to meet regularly even after the grant ended in 1980 (although several members dropped out at that time).

Their first meetings were at the Barnard Women’s Center’s library, and they went on to alternate meetings between Barnard and the Murray Research Center of Radcliffe College. In the meetings through the 1980s, the group members would present papers and get feedback from each other. The group members were frugal in their planning and considerate of the spaces in which they met. Their work culminated in the publication of Hidden Aspects of Women’s Work, a collection of essays edited by Cristine Bose, Roslyn Feldberg, and Natalie Sokoloff with the Women and Work Research Group.

After the publication of this book, some members left and others met less regularly, but they maintained strong community and friendships. The group started meeting at a member’s home in Maine once each summer, until it became a tradition of a few friends sharing their writing and experiences within their distinct careers. A larger representation of the group reunited in August, 2019 at the Barnard Archives and Special Collections.

Group members included Christine E. Bose, Nancy Breen, Carol Brown, Peggy Crull, Roslyn Feldberg, Nadine Felton, Myra Marx Ferree, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Heidi Hartmann, Amy Kesselman, Alice Kessler-Harris, Susan Lehrer, Dorothy Remy, Fran Rothstein, Natalie Sokoloff, Amy Gilman Srebnick, and Carole Turbin.