Oral History Rough Draft
(After beginning the interview and gathering information I decided to switch up my questions, and narrow them down to be more specific to her personally from what I had in my oral proposal)
Interviewee: Barbara Gaston
Barbara Gaston was an old family/friend, who I didn’t have much history on. She grew up in Cincinnati, OH. She married at age 23 and defined herself primarily as a wife and mother for the next 20 years. She was a young mother and wife, which was not untypical during this time. She was the first born of four children, and later lived in a blended household. Her father worked in copper mines, logging, and road construction. While her mother on the other hand was a stay at home mom who took care of the children and did housekeeping. They lived on what her father earned, as credit was not yet established as a way to obtain personal object and things. She explained that if a woman were to work outside of the home at this time in history, they would have held traditional gender roles such as a school teacher, nurse or secretary. She came from a traditional religious background, as religious beliefs held their own expectations of being a woman, and how a woman ought to be, including sexuality. Her grandmother was also a stay at home mother, choosing not to go into the workforce.
Barbara Gaston describes her childhood in the late 1940s as a poor family who lived off of a strict cash budget in Akron, OH. She described her life as a
Before 1840 women were viewed as something that needed to be taken care of. They could not own property, fathers would not mention their daughters in their wills, women could not be treasurer of their own companies, it was the husband’s responsibility. Only seven vocations were available to them outside of the home in the late 1840’s; widows would receive no share of her husband’s property or his families, and if one did not marry or remarry she had to enter one of the few employments for her or be a charity case for her relatives. When factory jobs became available to women they were quickly taken because it gave women a way to be independent and not a burden to their loved ones, but earn and spend their own money however the wished. For once
Women working men’s jobs were not as welcomed in society as they were in factories. People held on to the belief that women should be house wives and not have to do much in the way of work. The man should provide for the family, and the women should take care of the family. Many of the women who worked were lower class and had to help provide for their families, or were the only providers for their families. Women who worked men’s jobs were looked down upon and thought to be no better than dirt. Although women working in factories were still women, men did not show them the same respect as they did a woman working as a secretary or teacher.
Women’s history in the United States has always been represented as a struggle for rights. Wealth and status were tied to either their fathers or husbands. In the early 1900s, women were afforded the traditional roles of society. The majority of women worked in the home. If they were of the 18% young or poor women, they also worked in factories as laborers, manufacturing items for the booming industrial revolution (U.S. Department of Labor, 1980). During this time period the workplace was not in compliance with current safety standards. There was no minimum wage yet, work conditions were horrible and they worked long hours, “In 1900, the average workweek in manufacturing was 53 hours,” (Fisk, 2003). Women took “pink
Due to the demand of labor occurring in America, industries were at a deficit in workers. This led for young women to be hired to fill the gaps of labor of the deficit. This change went against society’s perception of a woman’s role. Before industries allowed women
The society she lived in envisioned that only men can do certain jobs. They believed that being a construction worker, firemen, and plumber is only for men because that is
While social change has brought on more changes than what women are a custom too, at one point in history women actually felt a form of importance in fulfilling their roles not only in the home; but outside as well. “These demographic shifts account for many new or altered roles, such as increased number of duel-earner families, later and fewer marriages, fewer children, increased life expectancy, and the massive migration shifting employees across a nation and across the globe” (Lindsey, 2011, pg. 275).
Women had the stereotype of being the homemaker which is a person whose main job is to take care of her family, home and children. Women were assumed to be homemakers with the primary responsibility for the children (Blair and Lenton 1). Traditionally, the job of a stay at home mother is done by women who have had to make them self’s approachable for marriage, stay at home, take care of the kids, cook and clean. Society benefited economically from high marriage rates because that led to an increase in production of family related goods, home construction, and furnishings. It was frown upon if women did not get married young, and a virgin. Women needed to get married in order to have unprotected intercourse because premarital sex was considered sinful. In the 1950s professional jobs were still largely closed off to women even after they had taken over the workforce when men left for World War II. It was common for companies not to want to hire women, and if they did provide employment for them they would pay them less than men. During that time there were too few women American lawyers, doctors, and engineers. Working women did not have a great salary, and were denied opportunities to advance. Their employers assumed they would quit their jobs as soon as they knew that had become pregnant. If women did work, they were stewardesses, secretaries, nurses and teachers. In addition, many women faced pressure from their families to stay home, and not work at all outside the home. In the 1950's, society encouraged, and pressured women to marry young because of the well-defined roles of that time. Women’s jobs were to serve as a homemaker and mother, so it was not deemed necessary for them to pursue a college degree. Most women were married after high school, and fell into their traditional gender roles right away. As stated in the American Journal of Sociology, “Women were
To commence, a woman’s role in the 1930s can be viewed by history, gender difference, and their duties. During the time of the European conquest, Native American girls were taught homemaking skills by the Europeans to further change their society to a European society (Lunardini 8). Additionally, in the 16th-17th century, the Puritans believed that the
Although females had push into the right direction, they still did face some adversity. “Many fully employed women defined themseleves as ‘homemakers’, outside the sphere of wage work” (Abelson, 117). This shows that even with all these changes for the better women did not shy away from their traditional roots.
Paid work for women moved from principally customary female-situated employments to all the more non-conventional and already male-arranged vocations. Ladies ' support in the workforce prompted them to start careers in the field dominated by male in the 20th century. Career yearnings were affected by elements, such as sexual orientation, financial status, race, occupation and instruction level, and parental desires. This paper exhibits how women developed, changed and the challenges they faced in the 20th century in America in the workforce and the advancement of ladies ' careers, improvement and profession goals during the 20th century in United States. Also, gender issues affecting women will be discussed in details during this period and how women played their role in fighting for their rights.
Similarly, in my culture gender norms were placed upon males needing to “man up,” and women were seen to be housewives. However, my grandmother wasn’t necessarily your average “house wife.” Indeed, she had children, and cooked for her husband but she also was provider as well. Like I mentioned before she worked at a fabric factory, but later applied to work for a hospital as maintenance. Here was a young mother of four stepping outside of the stereotypical norm to work and ensure stability for her family. Exposure to the workforce was very much embedded into the her children’s lives. Seeing both parents provide towards the household demonstrated a sense of equality among both male and female. As previously noted, my grandparents wanted their children to succeed in life so my grandfather always advised them to do more than he ever could. With money being low and my mom being the oldest she was forced to get a job at twelve. My grandfather helped her receive her first job working at a swat meet. With one child making some money, and two parents working they were able to save enough money to buy a house in the 1980’s.
Like a coin dropped between the cushions of a couch, traditional oral storytelling is a custom fading away in current American culture. For Native Americans, however, the practice of oral storytelling is still a tradition that carries culture and rich history over the course of generations. Three examples of traditional oral stories, “How Men and Women Got Together”, “Coyote’s Rabbit Chase”, and “Corn Mother”, demonstrate key differences in perspectives and values among diverse native tribes in America.
Woman along with the children were affected while working during the industrial revolution. During 1834 and 1836 Harriet Martineau, a British feminist and abolitionist, visited America and enthusiastically embraced the social implications of the Industrial Revolution, (DTA, 223). Martineau compared the lifestyle of women to slaves and said the United States contradicted the principles of the Declaration of Independence. She did believe though with some progress that it could become New England’s new industrial order. One of the Mill factories Martineau visited, Waltham Mill, was a prime example of the scheduled lifestyle of women mill workers. Women Mill workers of all ages worked at Waltham Mill, which I compared to a boarding school because of their strict schedules. The ladies had a time to wake up, to be at work, to eat, and to go to school. A lot of women did not mind the harsh conditions they lived and worked in because they fought for their equality of rights for a long time now.
It was the intention of this paper to situate The Oral Tradition Workshop for Educators and other intercultural programs in Esmeraldas into the greater context of intercultural educational programs globally. First, it aimed to illustrate that intercultural education is often a response to long-standing historical, political, and economic marginalization of one group by the dominate culture. For Afro-Ecuadorians, as in the cases of Europe and Latin America, the focus on intercultural education emerged as a response to historical marginalization after the amendment to the constitution in 1998 calling for expanded collective rights of indigenous groups and Afro-Ecuadorian. At the heart of intercultural education programs is the assumption that the school and its key actors (students, educators, administrators) play a critical role in eradicating inequality and negotiating spaces between cultures (Aikman, 1997). This belief is evident in all of the cases presented in the paper as well as the intercultural education programs in
Talcott Parsons’s sex role theory was based and structured according to a more traditional family structure in that the man was the work-oriented contributor (breadwinners) and the women was the domestically oriented partner (housewives) of the man ensuring the home, children and day to day household functions were tended to. In retrospect this structure was seen to produce future laborers who became contributing members of society which is all part of a capitalist system (Conley, 2013).