Description

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Rocking the Boat is a celebration of strong, committed women who helped to build the American labor movement. Through the stories of eleven women from a wide range of backgrounds, we experience the turmoil, hardships, and accomplishments of thousands of other union women activists through the period spanning the Great Depression, the New Deal, World War II, the McCarthy era, the civil rights movement, and the women's movement. These women tell powerful stories that highlight and detail women's many roles as workers, trade unionists, and family members. They all faced difficulties in their personal lives, overcame challenges in their unions, and individually and collectively helped improve women's everyday working lives.

Maida Springer-Kemp came from New York City's Harlem, Local 22 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, to represent the AFL-CIO in Africa. In Chicago, Alice Peurala fought for her job in the steel mill and her place in the steel workers' union. Jessie De La Cruz organized farm workers in California. Esther Peterson, organizer, educator, and lobbyist, became an advisor to four U.S. presidents. In chapters based on oral history interviews, these women and others provide new perspectives and practical advice for today's working women. They share an idealistic and practical commitment to the labor movement. As Dorothy Haener of the United Auto Workers and a founding member of the National Organization of Women said, "You have to take a look at how to rock the boat. You don't want to spill yourself out if you can avoid it, but sometimes you have to rock the boat." From these women we, too, learn how to rock the boat.

About the Author

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Brigid O'Farrell is a senior associate at the Center for Women Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. She has edited or coauthored several books, most recently Work and Family: Policies for a Changing Work Force. Joyce L. Kornbluh, workers' educator, labor historian, and community activist, recently retired from the Labor Studies Center, University of Michigan. Her most recent book is A New Deal for Workers' Education: The Workers' Service Program, 1934-1943.

Praise For…

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Will startle those for whom 'labor union' means a paunchy cigar-smoking white male. . . . A too-often ignored element of labor history.
— Booklist

Brings back many memories of the founding days of the National Organization for Women (NOW) . . . provides a timely lesson in coalition building and the importance of women and men working together on economic, political, and social issues so vital to our future.
— Betty Friedan

Celebrates the triumphs of ordinary women doing the extraordinary. I celebrate this moving collection of the stories of union women who changed the face of American labor.
— John Sweeney,

Gives long overdue recognition to eleven women, who, like many of their sisters in the labor movement, have given so much to their communities and their unions. They are an inspiration for today's working women, the organized and the unorganized, and they offer practical advice for those who continue the fight for justice for all workers.
— Gloria T. Johnson,

You could say that it's too bad that Dorothy Haener and the other women in this book had to 'rock the boat' to get the union movement to accept and acknowledge their talent. But thank goodness they had the guts and foresight to do what they did. And thank goodness there's this book to tell the story of how they made our whole movement better.
— Stephen P. Yokich