Seminars

In 1900, domestic work was the chief occupation of Black women in both Southern and Northern cities, though conditions differed sharply. In the South, this work was largely confined to Black women; in the North, white and immigrant women shared these roles. Using individual-level Census data from 1900–1950 across ten U.S. cities, this study traces the persistence of racial labor hierarchies and the enduring costs of occupational segregation for Black women.

The Ancestor’s Weave is the memoir of an Irish American activist who takes on the U.S. government and the Catholic church over its treatment of women and LGBTQI people, specifically women of color in the HIV epidemic, and later the U.S. government’s response to her mother’s death on 9/11. Much later in life she learns that every choice she has made was foreshadowed by the lives of her female ancestors. Blending historical fiction with identifiable facts, the book reclaims disappeared narratives and lives and the clear record of joyful resistance.