Synopses & Reviews
The growth of Las Vegas that began in the 1940s brought an influx of both women and men looking to work in the expanding hotel and casino industries. In fact, for the next fifty years the proportion of women in the labor force was greater in Las Vegas than the United States as a whole. Joanne L. Goodwinand#8217;s study captures the shifting boundaries of womenand#8217;s employment in the postwar decades with narratives drawn from the Las Vegas Women Oral History Project. It counters clichand#233;d pictures of women at work in the famed resort city as it explores womenand#8217;s real strategies for economic survival and success.
Their experiences anticipated major trends in post\-World War II labor history: the national migration of workers during and after the war, the growing proportion of women in the labor force, balancing work with family life, the unionization of service workers, and, above all, the desegregation of the labor force by sex and race. These narratives show women in Las Vegas resisting preassigned roles, seeing their work as a testimony of skill, a measure of independence, and a fulfillment of needs. Overall, these stories of women who lived and worked in Las Vegas in the last half of the twentieth century reveal much about the broader transitions for women in America between 1940 and 1990.
Review
and#147;A wonderful and highly readable addition to the Las Vegas literature, and a significant contribution to our understanding of women, gaming, and corporate power.and#8221;--Susan Chandler, associate professor of social work at the University of Nevada, Reno, and coauthor of
Casino Women: Courage in Unexpected PlacesReview
and#147;A valuable and significant contribution to scholarship on womenand#8217;s work in postwar America. Goodwinand#8217;s analysis draws out the complexity of these womenand#8217;s lived experiences.and#8221;--Elizabeth Jameson, professor of history at the University of Calgary and author of
All That Glitters: Class, Conflict, and Community in Cripple CreekSynopsis
Breaking free of assigned gender roles in the workplace
About the Author
Joanne L. Goodwin is professor of history and director of the Womenand#8217;s Research Institute of Nevada at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she was instrumental in developing the Nevada Womenand#8217;s Archive at Lied Library and the Las Vegas Women Oral History Project.