Continually Working: Black Women, Community Intellectualism, and Economic Justice in Postwar Milwaukee
Continually Working tells the stories of Black working women who resisted employment inequality in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from the 1940s to the 1970s. The book explores the job-related activism of Black Midwestern working women and uncovers the political and intellectual strategies they used to critique and resist employment discrimination, dismantle unjust structures, and transform their lives and the lives of those in their community.

Moten emphasizes the ways in which Black women transformed the urban landscape by simultaneously occupying spaces from which they had been historically excluded and creating their own spaces. Black women refused to be marginalized within the historically white and middle‑class Milwaukee Young Women's Christian Association (MYWCA), an association whose mission centered on supporting women in urban areas. Black women forged interracial relationships within this organization and made it, not without much conflict and struggle, one of the most socially progressive organizations in the city. When Black women could not integrate historically white institutions, they created their own. They established financial and educational institutions, such as Pressley School of Beauty Culture, which beautician Mattie Pressley DeWese opened in 1946 as a result of segregation in the beauty training industry. This school served economic, educational, and community development purposes as well as created economic opportunities for Black women. Historically and contemporarily, Milwaukee has been and is still known as one of the most segregated cities in the nation. Black women have always contested urban inequality, by making space for themselves and others on the margins. In so doing, they have transformed both the urban landscape and urban history.
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Continually Working: Black Women, Community Intellectualism, and Economic Justice in Postwar Milwaukee
Continually Working tells the stories of Black working women who resisted employment inequality in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from the 1940s to the 1970s. The book explores the job-related activism of Black Midwestern working women and uncovers the political and intellectual strategies they used to critique and resist employment discrimination, dismantle unjust structures, and transform their lives and the lives of those in their community.

Moten emphasizes the ways in which Black women transformed the urban landscape by simultaneously occupying spaces from which they had been historically excluded and creating their own spaces. Black women refused to be marginalized within the historically white and middle‑class Milwaukee Young Women's Christian Association (MYWCA), an association whose mission centered on supporting women in urban areas. Black women forged interracial relationships within this organization and made it, not without much conflict and struggle, one of the most socially progressive organizations in the city. When Black women could not integrate historically white institutions, they created their own. They established financial and educational institutions, such as Pressley School of Beauty Culture, which beautician Mattie Pressley DeWese opened in 1946 as a result of segregation in the beauty training industry. This school served economic, educational, and community development purposes as well as created economic opportunities for Black women. Historically and contemporarily, Milwaukee has been and is still known as one of the most segregated cities in the nation. Black women have always contested urban inequality, by making space for themselves and others on the margins. In so doing, they have transformed both the urban landscape and urban history.
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Continually Working: Black Women, Community Intellectualism, and Economic Justice in Postwar Milwaukee

Continually Working: Black Women, Community Intellectualism, and Economic Justice in Postwar Milwaukee

by Crystal Marie Moten
Continually Working: Black Women, Community Intellectualism, and Economic Justice in Postwar Milwaukee

Continually Working: Black Women, Community Intellectualism, and Economic Justice in Postwar Milwaukee

by Crystal Marie Moten

eBook

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Overview

Continually Working tells the stories of Black working women who resisted employment inequality in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from the 1940s to the 1970s. The book explores the job-related activism of Black Midwestern working women and uncovers the political and intellectual strategies they used to critique and resist employment discrimination, dismantle unjust structures, and transform their lives and the lives of those in their community.

Moten emphasizes the ways in which Black women transformed the urban landscape by simultaneously occupying spaces from which they had been historically excluded and creating their own spaces. Black women refused to be marginalized within the historically white and middle‑class Milwaukee Young Women's Christian Association (MYWCA), an association whose mission centered on supporting women in urban areas. Black women forged interracial relationships within this organization and made it, not without much conflict and struggle, one of the most socially progressive organizations in the city. When Black women could not integrate historically white institutions, they created their own. They established financial and educational institutions, such as Pressley School of Beauty Culture, which beautician Mattie Pressley DeWese opened in 1946 as a result of segregation in the beauty training industry. This school served economic, educational, and community development purposes as well as created economic opportunities for Black women. Historically and contemporarily, Milwaukee has been and is still known as one of the most segregated cities in the nation. Black women have always contested urban inequality, by making space for themselves and others on the margins. In so doing, they have transformed both the urban landscape and urban history.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780826505590
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Publication date: 03/15/2023
Series: Black Lives and Liberation
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
Sales rank: 784,809
File size: 18 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Crystal Marie Moten is a public historian, curator, and writer who focuses on the intersection of race, class, and gender to uncover the hidden histories of Black people in the Midwest.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Prologue
Introduction
1. "More than a Job": Black Women's Midcentury Struggles at the Milwaukee Young Women's Christian Association
2. "A Credit to Our City as well as Our State": Black Beauticians' Professionalization, Progress, and Organization in Milwaukee, 1940s and 1950s
3. Working Toward a Remedy: Exposing the Experiences of Black Women during the Civil Rights Era
4. "What the Mothers Have to Say": Welfare Rights Activism in 1970s Milwaukee
5. "No Longer Marching": Dismantling the Jim Crow Jobs System in a Post-Civil Rights Era
Epilogue
Bibliography
Notes
Index
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