RUcore Resource Object
RUcore Resource Object
PDF-1(93.76 MB)
TitleGlobal formation of race in close quarters
NamePhillips, Danielle Taylor (author), Hewitt, Nancy (chair), Ramos-Zayas, Ana (internal member), BROOKS, ETHEL (internal member), Brown-Glaude, Winnifred (outside member), Rutgers University, Graduate School - New Brunswick,
Degree Date2010-10
Date Created2010
SubjectWomen's and Gender Studies,
Household employees--New York (State)--New York--History--19th century,
Household employees--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century,
African American household employees--New York (State)--New York--History--19th century,
African American household employees--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century,
Irish--New York (State)--New York--History--19th century,
Irish--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century,
African Americans--Relations with Irish,
Irish--Relations with African Americans,
Ireland--Emigration and immigration--Social aspects
DescriptionMy dissertation investigates the experiences of southern African American women migrating to New York after emancipation and Irish women, who became heavily concentrated in domestic service positions there as a result of the migration that followed the devastating potato famines of the 1840s and 1850s. Although both groups of women were clearly marginalized because of their racial, gender, and class status, they moved to the center of debates about the meanings of citizenship, blackness, non-whiteness, whiteness, and the ideals of domesticity in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As southern Black, immigrant, and white women came into greater contact in the domestic sphere, the supposed “bedrock” of American civilization, it became a site of contention as groups negotiated modes of power and definitions of who was white and who was an “American.” Native-born white employers and Irish and southern African American domestic workers used personal interactions, letters to the editor, satirical images, and newspaper and journal articles as platforms to construct identities that would allow them to claim the material and ideological promises of the “American Dream.” Debates about the “domestic service problem” in New York City did not occur in isolation, of course. Harper’s Bazaar and other periodicals carried these discussions overseas, featuring transnational conversations between employers in the U.S. and London who exchanged tips about how to deal with the “belligerent” domestic workers who were “invading” their homes and providing “inadequate” service. This study also examines how Black intellectuals including W.E.B. Du Bois and Anna Julia Cooper inserted their own theoretical contributions into this global debate about domestic service and the particular interaction between Irish and southern African American female laborers in the North.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
NoteIncludes vita
Noteby Danielle Taylor Phillips
Genretheses
Persistent URLhttp://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10001600001.ETD.000056723
Languageeng
CollectionGraduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.