Librarians guide historians to the nuggets hidden within massive collections. Those important for this book were numerous: at the Arthur M. and Elizabeth Bancroft Schlesinger Library and Archives for Women’s History, Radcliffe College, manuscript director Kathy Kraft, library director Barbara Haber, and general director Pat King; at Cornell University’s Labor Documentation Center in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, historian–director Richard Strassberg; at the Archives of the National Board of the Young Women’s Christian Association in New York City, librarian and YWCA historian Elizabeth Norris; at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, archivist Dorothy Green; at the National Archives, most important because most difficult to penetrate, archivists Ken Heger, Jerry Hess, Jimmy Rush, and Aloha South; and at the Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, Jacqueline Goggin.
A Schlesinger Research Support grant in 1983–1984 and grants from the George Washington University’s University Research Committee in 1984 and 1986 provided the travel and copy funds necessary for a historical project and for the coding and analysis of 1934 household expenditure data. More important, they provided me superb assistance from the Schlesinger Library and Archives student aides and from four stellar George Washington University graduate students: Barbara Steffens, Mindy Chateauvert, and Jennifer Watson from Women’s Studies and Lorna Forster from Sociology. Graduate Dean Henry Solomon facilitated university grants and eased my teaching load at key points.
Editors and readers clarified the book’s direction and enabled me to see it to fruition. Sonya Michel’s comments, Ronnie Steinberg’s editorial savvy, and Michael Ames’s efficient management helped me bring this book into existence.
During a 1986 sabbatical, I was provided with congenial writing space by Susan and Asa Briggs and Lisa Spry-Leverton. Rosemary Foot and Tim Kennedy helped out with a computer. My health was maintained by AA, Alexander Technique teachers Ulla Simmons and Michael Gelb, and acupuncturist Dianne Shelton.
Thinking of the myriad discussions, books, articles, and conference presentations that stimulated and nurtured this book is to recount my life of the past seven years. Among the most significant stimuli were the women in the Washington Women Historians, the Chesapeake Area Group of Women Historians, and the Washington area Marxist–Feminist Study Group. A group of scholars dedicated to making domestic work visible has been a constant resource: Shellee Colen, Bonnie Thornton Dill, Faye Dudden, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Janet Golden, Elaine Bell Kaplan, Elizabeth Clark-Lewis, Mary Romero, and especially Judith Rollins, who generously read chapters and gave thoughtful criticisms. George Washington University colleagues who gave expert assistance or encouragement from their own research were Ed Berkowitz, Joe Gastwirth, Sheldon Haber, James Oliver Horton, Ann Romines, and Roberta Spalter-Roth.
Women friends, many with scholarship in divergent or related fields, asked good questions throughout the process and helped me believe in this book. I give thanks to Elaine Beilin, Eileen Boris, Jann Warren-Findley, Dee Hahn-Rollins, Vivien Hart, Mervat Hatem, Rubye Johnson, Terry Odendahl, Sharon Parker, Carol Rose, Michele Slung, and especially Jane Flax, friend and sister book-writer through the entire process.
Family always stand last in acknowledgments, sources of emotional though not necessarily professional support. I feel fortunate that my friends and family so often give me both. I thank the women of my family in the dedication, and here I recognize the affection and happiness I draw from my brother Sam and my nephews Laird and Mark. “Jason,” woman’s best friend, curled himself comfortingly at my feet during many days of reading and writing. My goddaughter Elizabeth shared weekend jaunts that re-created me. My family by marriage, Toni and Chris, Shay and Toby, Jason and Arlene, gave friendship, apartment space, and good design advice. And my true companion and husband, Marcus Cunliffe, helped me to believe in myself as creator and as book-writer.