"A Superior Kind of Working Woman": The Contested Meaning of Vocational Education for Girls in Progressive Era Chicago

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dc.contributor.authorOram, Ruby
dc.date.accessioned2021-07-07T16:25:11Z
dc.date.available2021-07-07T16:25:11Z
dc.date.issued2021-07
dc.description.abstractProgressive Era school officials transformed public education in American cities by teaching male students trades like foundry, carpentry, and mechanics in classrooms outfitted like factories. Historians have demonstrated how this “vocational education movement” was championed by male administrators and business leaders anxious to train the next generation of expert tradesmen. But women also hoped vocational education could prepare female students for industrial careers. In the early twentieth century, members of the National Women’s Trade Union League demanded that public schools open trade programs to female students and teach future working women the history of capitalism and the philosophy of collective bargaining. Their ambitious goals were tempered by some middle-class reformers and club women who argued vocational programs should also prepare female students for homemaking and motherhood. This article uses Chicago as a case study to explore how Progressive Era women competed and collaborated to reform vocational education for girls, and how female students responded to new school programs designed to prepare them for work both in and outside the home.
dc.description.departmentHistory
dc.formatText
dc.format.extent19 pages
dc.format.medium1 file (.pdf)
dc.identifier.citationOram, R. (2021). "A superior kind of working woman": The contested meaning of vocational education for girls in progressive era Chicago. The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 20(3), pp. 392-410.
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1017/S153778142100013X
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10877/13811
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherCambridge University Press
dc.rights.holder© 2021 The Author(s).
dc.rights.licenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
dc.sourceThe Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 2021, Vol. 20, No. 3.
dc.subjectChicago
dc.subjecteducation
dc.subjectlabor
dc.subjectschool reform
dc.subjectwomen and gender
dc.subjectHistory
dc.title"A Superior Kind of Working Woman": The Contested Meaning of Vocational Education for Girls in Progressive Era Chicago
dc.typeArticle

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