UMD hosts ‘Writing Trades Women into History’ March 9

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4381

By Larry Sillanpa 28 February 2010

DULUTH - This is the 30th Anniversary of celebrating March as Women’s History Month. To honor the occasion, the University of Minnesota-Duluth Women’s Studies Department will host a presentation by author Jane LaTour.
“Writing Trades Women into History,” will be given Tuesday, March 9, at 7 p.m. in Montague Hall 80 on the UMD campus (across the corridor from the Marshall Performing Arts Center).

LaTour is the author of “Sisters In The Brotherhoods,” which chronicles the fight for women trying to gain employment in blue-collar jobs in New York City in the 1970s. It is an oral history of women who broke the gender barrier in the presumed liberal NYC, and its strong union tradition, against considerable odds.


This undated photo shows some of the “Sisters” having a good time at a New York City march.

United Trades Women photo

The women LaTour chronicled became ironworkers, plumbers, stationary engineers, elevator mechanics, carpenters, electricians, and firefighters among other occupations.

Her interviews started in 1989 as a simple idea for a brochure and went through 2006 after she realized she had actually created a much larger project. Her book was published in 2008 but she says it is a work in progress.

This isn’t just a story about New York City, it’s a story about America that is still being lived. Battles for equality are far from over throughout the United States.

FULL story at link.