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Women in the Service Industries: National Perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Angel Kwolek-Folland  and
Margaret Walsh
Angel Kwolek-Folland
Affiliation:
ANGEL KWOLEK-FOLLAND is professor of history and women's studies and Interim Associate Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Florida.
Margaret Walsh
Affiliation:
MARGARET WALSH is professor of American economic and social history at the University of Nottingham.
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Extract

The purpose of this special issue is to explore the relationship of gender in several national contexts to the service industriesbusinesses that provide benefit to others or produce items or infrastructure that support others. Several questions have guided our overall purpose. What do we learn about business history generally, and the service sector specifically, by taking gender into account? Is what we learn the same in different national contexts? If not, why not? We hope that the answers suggested in the essays will stimulate dialogue on both national case studies and comparative themes and will illuminate transnational patterns and perspectives in the history of women, gender, and business.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 81 , Issue 3 , Autumn 2007 , pp. 421 - 427
Copyright
Copyright The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2007

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References

1 The historiographical essay by Margaret Walsh on transportation services was not originally presented in Barcelona and is new for this issue.

2 The U.S. economic census, beginning in the nineteenth century, devised economic categories for various industries. These sectoral divisions have expanded over time as new types of economic activity have developed. The primary sector is made up of economic activities that convert natural resources into products (i.e., agriculture, fishing, forestry, mining); the secondary sector contains manufacturing (i.e., the automobile, chemical, and steel industries); the tertiary sector covers the provision of services, including information and transportation, to other businesses or consumers. Some economists have argued for a fourth, quaternary, sector that would encompass research, development, and various information services; however, these areas also belong in the tertiary sector. See, for example, Boettcher, Jennifer C. and Gaines, Leonard M., Industry Research Using the Economic Census (Westport, Conn., 2004);Google Scholar and Cameron, Rondo E., A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present (New York, 2003).Google Scholar Some recent works on service industries include Harlaftis, Gelina, Greek Shipowners and Greece, 1945-1975 (London, 1994);Google ScholarLaird, Pamela, Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Baltimore, Md., 1998);Google ScholarOlegario, Rowena, A Culture of Credit: Embedding Trust and Transparency in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 2006);CrossRefGoogle ScholarMcKenna, Christopher D., The World's Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, U.K., 2006);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Levinson, Marc, The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger (Princeton, 2006).Google Scholar

3 Rosenberg, Rosalind, Divided Lives: American Women in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1992),Google Scholar ch. l. See also Kwolek-Folland, Angel, Incorporating Women: A History of Women and Business in the United States (New York, 2002), 8.Google Scholar

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8 Fraser, What's Critical, 107. On public space and gender, see Rose, Gillian, Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge (Minneapolis, 1993);Google ScholarMeyerowitz, Joanne, Sexual Geography and Gender Economy: The Furnished Room Districts of Chicago, 1890-1930, Gender & History 2 (Autumn 1990): 27496;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHayden, Dolores, The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (Cambridge, 1996);Google Scholar and Lemire, Beverly, The Business of Everyday Life: Practice and Social Politics in England, c.1600-1900 (Manchester, U.K., 2005).Google Scholar

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11 Jensen, Joan, Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750-1850 (New Haven, Conn., 1986), ch. 6;Google ScholarKwolek-Folland, Angel, Engendering Business: Men and Women in the Corporate Office, 18701930 (Baltimore, 1994);Google ScholarLeidner, Robin, Serving Hamburgers and Selling Insurance: Gender, Work, and Identity in Interactive Service Jobs, Gender and Society 5 (June 1991): 15477;CrossRefGoogle ScholarOldenziel, Ruth, Making Technology Masculine: Men, Women and Modern Machines in America, 1790-1945 (Amsterdam, 1999);Google ScholarStrom, Sharon, Beyond the Typewriter: Gender, Class and the Origins of Modern Office Work, 1900-1930 (Urbana, Ill., 1992);Google ScholarMcMurray, Sally, Transforming Rural Life: Dairying Families and Agricultural Change, 1820-1885 (Baltimore, 1995).Google Scholar

12 Women's wage employment in non-agricultural sector as percentage of total non-agricultural employees, United Nations Statistics Division, Millennium Indicators. Accessed at http:unstats.un.orgunsdmi, 29 Jan. 2005.

13 http:www.nationmaster.com, accessed 29 Jan. 2005.

14 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, tables 2, 32. Accessed at http:www.bls.govcps, 1 Aug. 2004.

15 For the United States, see reports by the National Foundation of Women Business Owners, at http:www.nfwbo.org, accessed 1 Aug. 2004. On Europe, see United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Access to Financing and ITC for Women Entrepreneurs in the UNECE Region: Challenges and Good Practices (Geneva, 2004). Numerous national and international organizations address women's business participation. See, for example, the Alliance of Business Women International (http:abwi.org) and the Center for International Private Enterprise (http:www.cipe.org).