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History Post-confederation (1867-)

Transforming Labour

Women and Work in Postwar Canada

by (author) Joan Sangster

Publisher
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Initial publish date
May 2010
Category
Post-Confederation (1867-), Social History, Women's Studies
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802097118
    Publish Date
    May 2010
    List Price
    $90.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802096524
    Publish Date
    May 2010
    List Price
    $52.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442698963
    Publish Date
    May 2010
    List Price
    $41.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442698956
    Publish Date
    Dec 2010
    List Price
    $90.00

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Description

The increased participation of women in the labour force was one of the most significant changes to Canadian social life during the quarter century after the close of the Second World War. Transforming Labour offers one of the first critical assessments of women's paid labour in this era, a period when more and more women, particularly those with families, were going 'out to work'.

Using case studies from across Canada, Joan Sangster explores a range of themes, including women's experiences within unions, Aboriginal women's changing patterns of work, and the challenges faced by immigrant women. By charting women's own efforts to ameliorate their work lives as well as factors that re-shaped the labour force, Sangster challenges the commonplace perception of this era as one of conformity, domesticity for women, and feminist inactivity. Working women's collective grievances fuelled their desire for change, culminating in challenges to the status quo in the 1960s, when they voiced their discontent, calling for a new world of work and better opportunities for themselves and their daughters.

About the author

Joan Sangster is a professor of women's studies and history at Trent University, where she also teaches at the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Native Studies. Her most recent books are Girl Trouble: Female 'Delinquency' in English Canada and Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Postwar Canada.

Joan Sangster's profile page

Awards

  • Commended, John A. Macdonald Prize awarded by Canadian Historical Association

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