1. Her Daily Bread: History of Working Women in Wisconsin [videorecording]. Madison, Wis.: School for Workers-UWEX Madison; 1980. 1 VHS videocassette (20 minutes), sd., b&w-stop action; 1/2. Notes: “Describes a history of the working conditions and progress of women in the labor force in Wisconsin.”–OCLC #13649701.

    CREDITS: Producer/Director, Barbara Morford. Contributor, Barbara Morford. Photography and music consultant, Lewis Rock. Script, F. O’Sullivan. With support from the Wisconsin Humanities Committee on behalf of the National Endorwment for the Humanities.

  2. Industrial Accidents to Women in New Jersy, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office; 1927. 316 p. (Bulletin of the Women’s Bureau, United States Department of Labor; no. 60).
  3. Patrick Cudahy Strike and Plant Closing of 1987-1989 Oral History Project. 1994. 37 audio cassette tapes . Notes: This oral history collection consists of interviews done in 1994 with participants in the bitter two-year-long labor strike during 1987-1989 at the Patrick Cudahy meatpacking plant in Cudahy, Wisconsin, a small town just south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; interviewees included the company’s president and its human relations director, as well as the president of the local union involved (United Food and Commercial Workers Local P-40) and fifteen other striking workers, including several women workers.
    Location: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Manuscript Collection (control number UWM Manuscript Collection 123), Division of Archives and Special Collections, Golda Meir Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
  1. Women of Wisconsin Labor Oral History Project, 1988-1995. 1988. 88 tape recordings .
    Notes: This oral history collection consists of interviews done from 1988 through 1995 with thirty-seven women active in the labor movement in Wisconsin; the interviewees had been chosen to ensure a balanced representation of different union affiliations, of the various employment sectors that exist (such as public employment, service industries, manufacturing, etc.), and also of the different geographic regions around the state.

    Location: Archives Division, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison; consult the online catalog, ArCat (the Archives Computer Catalog), to find the exact control numbers for the various portions of this collection.

  2. Workers in Wisconsin History: Commemorating the Contributions and Acknowledging the Struggles of Working People Toward Making Wisconsin a Great State, A Labor History Sesquicentennial Project of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Labor Education and Training Center, Inc. Germanson, Kenneth A., editor. Milwaukee, Wis.: Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Labor Education and Training Center, Inc.; [1999]. 24 p.
    Notes: “This booklet highlights presentations made at six events which were held throughout the state as part of the ‘Workers in Wisconsin History’ Project during 1998–Wisconsin’s Sesquicentennial Year. The contents … include excerpts from speeches, writings or other presentations made at the events.”–inside front cover.

    CONTENTS: “The Bay View Tragedy of May 5, 1886: A Look at Milwaukee’s 8-Hour March, Killings from the Workers’ Point of View” / by Howard Zinn, p. 3-5. — “The Great Oshkosh Woodworkers Strike of 1898: Women Played Heroic Role in Citywide Struggle that had National Significance” / by Virginia Crane, p. 6-8. — “The 1940s and the Union Movement in Wisconsin: Wartime Saw Unions Grow in Numbers, Enter into New Areas, Like Politics” / by Darryl Holter, p. 9-12. — “Labor in the Upper Wisconsin River Valley: From Paternalism to Cooperation, Workers, Companies Built Prosperity” / by James Lorence, p. 13-15. — “Labor in Stevens Point, 1880-1998: From $1 a Day for 12 Hours, Unions Made a Difference in Area” / by George Rogers, p. 16-20. — “Superior’s Labor History Hall of Fame: A Century of Labor’s Struggles Told in the Stories of Five Leaders” / by Joel Sipress, p. 21-23.

    Another edition: Also available on the web at URL http://my.execpc.com/~blake/table.htm.

  3. Applebaum, Leon. “A Lock-Out: The Hosiery Workers in Kenosha, 1928-1929”. IN: Holter, Darryl. Workers and Unions in Wisconsin: A Labor History Anthology. Madison, Wis.: State Historical Society of Wisconsin; 1999; pp. 82-87.
    Notes: Excerpted from his article, “Turmoil in Kenosha: The Allen-A Hosiery Dispute of 1928-1929,” Wisconsin Magazine of History (v. 70, no. 4), Summer 1987, p. 281-303.
  4. —. “Turmoil in Kenosha: The Allen-A Hosiery Dispute of 1928-1929”. Wisconsin Magazine of History. 1987; 70(4):281-303.

    Notes: Discusses a bitter and tumultuous strike by the American Federation of Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers Branch 6 against the Allen-A Hosiery Company of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Only about half of the firm’s employees worked in the full-fashioned department which was involved in the strike; this department made silk stockings and had two categories of employees: the knitters (primarily men), who knit the foot of the stocking and the toppers (primarily young women), who attached each foot to the leg of the stocking, which the knitters then seamed together. Dissension had been growing between the employees and the company prior to the strike due to management’s announced intention to adopt an emerging industry trend to require each skilled knitter to supervise two knitting machines, rather than the previous practice of only one machine. On February 15, 1928 management precipitated the strike by firing all their knitters and announcing that only those knitters who were not in a union would be re-hired the next day; the approximately 250 knitters and their supporters among the approximately 450 toppers went on strike in the morning.

    With the 1,300 Allen-A employees making up almost ten percent of the total factory workers in Kenosha, the effects of the strike were felt throughout the community, including political repercussions in city government. The police chief and the city manager, both of whom had tried to remain neutral regarding the labor dispute, were removed from office by the businessmen on the city council. In March 1928, when the strikers held a mass picket in defiance of a federal injunction which prohibited any activity in furtherance of the strike, many strikers were arrested and brought to trial, but a jury found them innocent; the company responded with additional legal challenges.

  1. Baxandall, Lee, editor. “Furs, Logs and Human Lives: The Great Oshkosh Woodworkers Strike of 1898.”. Green Mountain Quarterly. 1976 May; (3):1-107.

    Notes: In Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on May 16, 1898 the workers in the door, sash and blind factories, represented by the Amalgamated Woodworkers Union (AWU), went out on strike primarily for union recognition and against the “starvation wages” paid in the Oshkosh mills, wages much lower than the woodworker pay scale nationally. During an altercation at a plant gate on June 23, one striker was killed, clubbed in the head by a scab. Women played an important role in supporting the striking workers. Although Oshkosh strike benefits of $3 a week were suspended in mid-June due to AWU woodworkers in Chicago beginning a strike also, the Oshkosh strike was maintained until August when the Oshkosh woodworkers returned to work with hardly any gain, due to harassing lawsuits filed by the mill owners against the key leaders of the strike. The famed defense lawyer Clarence Darrow, himself the son of a woodworker and having assisted AWU previously, represented the Oshkosh union leaders in a dramatic trial which successfully turned the mill owners’ claims of conspiracy on the part of the workers to combine to withhold their labor to that of the mill owners having conspired “against humanity and the natural wish for freedom and equality” (p. 31). For the complete text of Darrow’s eloquent summation, see p. 35-92. Also, around the time of the trial’s conclusion, state officials determined that two company practices of the mill owners were in violation of then current state law–a call for the abolition of those practices had been among the four original strike demands of the Oshkosh workers. Baxandall’s concluding chapter, “Aftermath–From Powerlessness to Worker Ownership” (p. 93-107), discusses the changing circumstances of employees at the Paine Lumber Company (one of the key mills involved in the 1898 strike) up to the time at which this work was published (1976).

  2. Buenker, John D. “The Politics of Mutual Frustration: Socialists and Suffragists in New York and Wisconsin”. IN: Miller, Sally M., editor. Flawed Liberation: Socialism and Feminism. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press; 1981; pp. 113-144.
  3. Carideo, Tony. “Catherine Conroy: Unionist and Feminist”. IN: Holter, Darryl. Workers and Unions in Wisconsin: A Labor History Anthology. Madison, Wis.: State Historical Society of Wisconsin; 1999; pp. 232-233.
    Notes: A biographical piece about this pioneering Wisconsin woman, a longtime staff representative for the Communications Workers of America (C.W.A.) and the first woman to serve on the governing board of the Wisconsin Federation of Labor.
  4. Costello, Cynthia B. “The Clerical Homework Program at the Wisconsin Physicians Services Insurance Corporation”. In: Boris, Eileen and Daniels, Cynthia R., editors. Homework: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Paid Labor at Home. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press; 1989; p. [198]-214.
  5. Costello, Cynthia B. “Home-Based Clerical Employment”. In: Christensen, Kathleen E., editor. The New Era of Home-Based Work: Directions and Policies. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press; 1988; pp. 135-145. Notes: This study looked at women who did clerical work in their home for the Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation (WPS), located in Madison, Wisconsin, from 1980 on. WPS required that the home-based workers be “housebound women with preschool-age children” (p.135). United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1444, which represented the clerical workers in the WPS headquarters building, did not also represent the home-based workers. As the book’s editor explains in the volume’s introduction, Costello “examines the day-to-day realities that a working mother faces when she tries to balance simultaneously the demands of a paid job and the demands of children in the home” (p. 10). The author conducted this study as part of the research for her doctoral dissertation.
  1. —. “‘On the Front’: Class, Gender, and Conflict in the Insurance Workplace”; 1984. Notes: Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1984. 308 p.
  2. —. “‘WEA’re Worth It!’: Work Culture and Conflict at the Wisconsin Education Association Insurance Trust”. Feminist Studies. 1985; 11(3):497-518.
  3. Crane, Virginia Glenn. “The Very Pictures of Anarchy”: Women in the Oshkosh Woodworkers’ Strike of 1898. Wisconsin Magazine of History. 2001 Spring; 84(3):44-59.
    Notes: In this article taken from her book, The Oshkosh Woodworkers’ Strike of 1898: A Wisconsin Community in Crisis, the author focuses on the instrumental role women played in strike activities, especially in thwarting scabs and strikebreakers.
  4. DeRosier, John Baptiste. “Nothin’ But a Machine: A History of the Eau Claire Rubber Workers on Strike”; 1998.

    Notes: M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, 1998. [79] p. Using the records of both the Uniroyal, Inc. company plant in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and the union representing the workers at the plant, United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum and Plastic Workers of America Local 19, DeRosier analyzes the labor strikes involving the Eau Claire plant in 1950, 1951, 1953, 1955, and 1967 and also discusses how the company discriminated against its female employees.

  5. Doro, Sue. Blue Collar Goodbyes. 1st ed. Watsonville, Calif.: Papier-Mache Press; 1992. 73 p.
    Notes: Poems, photographs and essays about the thirteen years the author spent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the only woman machinist with the Milwaukee Road Railway and at the Allis-Chalmers tractor plant at a time of increased plant closings and cutbacks. In 1993 the Wisconsin Library Association selected this book as one of the ten books of “Outstanding Achievement” by Wisconsin authors for the year.

    Reviewed: Allen, Hayward (reviewer). “Badger Books: Writers Link Past to Present.” Wisconsin State Journal, Sunday, November 22, 1992, p. 3F. Reviewed: Monaghan, Pat (reviewer). Booklist Library Journal p. 81 Another edition: p. 710 December 15, 1992. Reviewed: Ratner, Rochelle (reviewer). March 1, 1993. Doro, Sue. Blue Collar Goodbyes. Huron, O.: Bottom Dog Press, 2000. 85 p. (Working Lives Series) ISBN: 0-933087-66-7.

  1. ––. Heart, Home & Hard Hats: The Non-Traditional Work and Words of a Woman Machinist and Mother. Minneapolis, Minn.: Midwest Villages & Voices; 1986. 85 p.
    Notes: This second collection of poems by Sue Doro includes a glowing preface written by Meridel Le Sueur, a member of the group Midwest Villages & Voices which published this volume. Many of these poems touch on aspects of Doro’s non-traditional work as a woman machinist and on the people in her life, both at work and at home.
  2. —. Of Birds and Factories. Milwaukee, Wis.: Peoples’ Books and Crafts; 1983. 104 p.
    Notes: This first collection of poems by Sue Doro includes a glowing foreword written by Meridel Le Sueur. Some of the poems in this volume also made it into her second collection, Heart, Home & Hard Hats, but many appear here only.
  3. Hart, Agnes Ellen. “A Proposed Plan of Guidance for the Girls’ Trades and Technical High School of Milwaukee, Wisconsin”; 1933.

    Notes: M. A. thesis, Marquette University, 1933. 140 leaves Cited in Anderson, Byron, ed., A Bibliography of Master’s Theses and Doctoral Dissertations on Milwaukee Topics, p. 36.

  4. Holz, Alice. “Memories of the Milwaukee Leader.” Milwaukee History. 1990; 13:188-25.
  1. Hourwich, Andria T. and Palmer, Gladys L. I Am a Woman Worker: A Scrapbook of Autobiographies. New York: The Affiliated Schools for Workers, Inc.; 1936. 152 p.
  2. Jamakaya. Like Our Sisters Before Us: Women of Wisconsin Labor–Based on Interviews Conducted for the Women of Wisconsin Labor Oral History Project. Milwaukee, Wis.: Wisconsin Labor History Society; 1998. 93 p.
    Notes: Ten female union leaders of Wisconsin, including one African-American, are profiled; the women were most active from the 1940s through the 1970s. This volume also includes a list of the over thirty interviewees of the Women of Wisconsin Labor Oral History Project of the Wisconsin Labor History Society; all of the project’s audio recordings and additional supporting materials from the interviewees are available to researchers through the Archives Division, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

    CONTENTS: Evelyn Donner Day, Milwaukee (Int’l Ladies Garment Workers Union; United Auto Workers). — Alice Holz, Milwaukee (Office and Professional Employees Int’l Union). — Evelyn Gotzion, Madison (Federal Labor Union No. 19587; United Auto Workers). — Catherine Conroy, Milwaukee (Communications Workers of America). — Nellie Wilson, Milwaukee (United Steel Workers of America). — Doris Thom, Janesville (Int’l Association of Machinists; United Auto Workers). — Lee Schmeling, Neenah (Graphic Arts Int’l Union; Graphic Communications Int’l Union). — Helen Hensler, Milwaukee (Office and Professional Employees Int’l Union). — Joanne Bruch, Whitewater (Int’l Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers). — Florence Simons, Milwaukee (Int’l Association of Machinists; United Auto Workers; Allied Industrial Workers).

  3. Jones, Mary Harris Mother. “Girl Slaves of the Milwaukee Brewers”. United Mine Workers Journal. 1910 Apr 7; 20( 47):2.

    Notes: How eloquently Mother Jones writes here of the dismal plight on the job for the young women who work in the bottle washing departments of the Schlitz, Pabst, Miller, and Blatz breweries in Milwaukee, Wisconsin–the constant wet shoes and wet clothes leading to early rheumatism and consumption, the pitiful wages, the foul language and unwelcome sexual attentions of the foremen! Unable to win any relief for the “Girl Slaves of the Milwaukee Brewers” from either the owners of the Milwaukee breweries or from the Wisconsin legislature in Madison (the state’s capital), in spite of two months of agitation, Mother Jones ends this article by calling upon “all fair minded people to refrain from purchasing the product of these Baron Brewers.”

  4. Loew, Patty. “The Back of the Homefront: Black and American Indian Women in Wisconsin during World War II”. Wisconsin Magazine of History. 1998 Winter-1999 Winter; 82(2):82-103.
    Notes: Based on oral histories conducted between 1992 and 1994 with seven Wisconsin minority women (three Ojibwe and four African-Americans) about their experiences on the homefront during World War II, this article describes how Native-American and African-American women in Wisconsin met the challenges they faced in trying to support their families during the war. While jobs for minority women before the war had generally been restricted to the domestic service sector, during the Second World War some better-paying opportunities did open up for them and Loew carefully discusses those changes. Some factory jobs even became available to minority women in larger cities and Nellie Wilson of Milwaukee, who worked in the A.O. Smith Corporation’s steel factory as a precision inspector during the war, is one of the women featured in this article. Even during the war, however, minority women in rural areas faced an incredibly narrow range of job opportunities; on the Native-American reservations, for instance, often the only work available for paid wages was the seasonal harvesting of crops, such as cranberries, blueberries, and wild rice.
  5. Miller, Spencer Jr. “Summer Schools for Workers”. American Federationist: Official Magazine of the American Federation of Labor. 1925 Jul; 32:569-571.
  6. Palmer, Gladys L. The Industrial Experience of Women Workers at the Summer Schools, 1928 to 1930. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office; 1931. 62 p. (Bulletin of the Women’s Bureau, United States Department of Labor; no. 89).
    Notes: This study, undertaken for the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor, thoroughly analyses the work experience and living circumstances of the 609 women in total who attended four summer schools provided for women employed in industrial jobs in the U.S. during 1928 through 1930; the four schools studied were: the Wisconsin Summer School at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin; the Barnard Summer School at Barnard College in New York, New York; the Bryn Mawr Summer School at Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; and, the Southern Summer School in Arden, North Carolina. The attendees at these special summer schools for women were each sponsored by a local committee, based on the student having “shown some qualities of leadership and interest in workers’ education or other community activities” (p. 2); scholarship money was raised to defray their costs. The women’s jobs were concentrated in the following fields: clothing trades; textile trades; domestic and personal service trades; and, miscellaneous trades (for instance, retail trades, factory assembly, metal trades, printing, upholstery, munitions, packing candy, etcetera). This study made use of detailed surveys which covered every economic aspect of the women’s lives, such as the age at which they entered industrial work, how much money they save each year, what deductions are made from their pay, etc. Twenty-eight tables of data are provided with many reporting the data down to the level of each of the four schools; numerous autobiographies collected from the students are quoted extensively.
  1. Pesotta, Rose. Bread Upon the Waters. Edited by, John Nicholas Beffel. New York: Dodd, Mead; 1944. 435 p.

    Notes: See p. 183-190 for Pesotta’s autobiographical account of organizing female cotton dress workers with International Ladies Garment Workers Union (I.L.G.W.U.) Local 188 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1935. Pesotta, a well-known U.S. woman labor organizer, also comments upon an I.L.G.W.U. strike in Racine, Wisconsin by female rainwear workers against the Chicago Rubber Company.

    Another edition: Pesotta, Rose; edited by John Nicholas Beffel. Bread Upon the Waters. Ithaca, N.Y.: I.L.R. Press, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 1987. This reprint added a section of photographs and an introduction by Ann Schofield.

  2. —. “Organizing Garment Workers”. IN: Holter, Darryl. Workers and Unions in Wisconsin: A Labor History Anthology. Madison, Wis.: State Historical Society of Wisconsin; 1999; pp. 147-150. Notes: Reproduces from her autobiography, Bread Upon the Waters, the portions about her organizing experience in Milwaukee and Racine, Wisconsin, on behalf of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
  3. Pifer, Richard L. A City At War: Milwaukee Labor During World War II. Madison, Wis.: Wisconsin Historical Society Press; 2003. 210 p.

    Notes: How Milwaukee workers and their families shared in the homefront efforts to win the war, while continuing to make use of labor relations for the future to come after the war’s conclusion.

  4. —. “A Social History of the Home Front: Milwaukee Labor During World War II”; 1983.
    Notes: Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1983. 515 p. The role of workers and labor unions on the homefront in Milwaukee, Wisconsin during World War II is examined. While labor fully supported the war effort and tried to balance the needs of its movement with the needs of the nation, the author found that workers and their unions fought to maintain their ability to effectively represent their union members in the workplace and in their community and that the traditional techniques of the labor movement continued to be used throughout the duration of the war as a counterbalance to the power of the corporations. For a fuller abstract, see Dissertation Abstracts International, 1984, 45(1): 279-A.
  5. Reese, William J. “‘Partisans of the Proletariat’: The Socialist Working Class and the Milwaukee Schools, 1890-1920”. History of Education Quarterly. 1981 Spring; 21(1):3-50.
    Notes: You won’t want to miss this fascinating look at how the Socialist working class in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, brought about changes in the public school system in Milwaukee during the Progressive era in the United States. In this award-winning article, by using “a social analysis of organized labor, socialism, and the Milwaukee schools during the Progressive era” (p. 3), the author argues against the generally-accepted academic interpretation that most early twentieth-century school reforms during the Progressive period were largely imposed upon the public schools through the mechanism of a new “professional” group of conservative and middle-class school officials.

    Instead, Reese explores the relationship between the Milwaukee Federated Trades Council (founded in 1887 to represent the skilled trade uniontists in the city) and Branch One of the Social Democratic Party of America (founded in Milwaukee in 1897 after the Socialists in Milwaukee had been forced out of Wisconsin’s Populist Party due to their more leftist political orientation) and how the two groups worked together to effect changes in the local schools. Included in the first platform of Milwaukee’s Social Democratic Party (SDP) was a demand for free textbooks for poor children and by 1909 the SDP had elected a member to the school board in Milwaukee.

    The author also details how the Socialist workers allied themselves over time in a fruitful coalition with various Milwaukee voluntary associations and civic groups, mostly composed of middle-class women who had been inspired by the social activism of the Progressive era. Reese explains how such civic associations campaigned for school reforms as an over-all strategy to bring about improvements in the lives of those living in poverty; examples of some of their programs include distribution of free clothes and food to school children, better sanitation in the schools, smaller class sizes, provision of school libraries, opening up the school buildings as community centers, direct election of school board members, and encouraging better environmental conditions about school buildings. Eventually, this willingness to partner with such middle-class groups to achieve such concrete improvements led to the Milwaukee Socialists being given the approbation of “Sewer Socialists” by Socialists in other parts of the country.

    It is impossible to innumerate all of the interesting points of discussion in this article ranging from the effective political use of “indignation meetings” as a protest technique (p. 26); the news that Milwaukee had a Girl’s Trade School (p. 32); and, that during the World War I period, even the local school children were pressured to sign “loyalty oaths” in their classes (p. 36).
    “This paper received the Henry Barnard Prize of The History of Education Society (1978-79).”–p. 3.

  1. Rice, Mary Kellogg. Useful Work for Unskilled Women: A Unique Milwaukee WPA Project. Supported by the Leslie T. Bruhnke Fund, Greater Milwaukee Foundation and the Milwaukee Idea Fund University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wis.: Milwaukee County Historical Society; 2003. 136 p.

    Notes: Documents the life and scope of the Milwaukee Works Progress Administration (WPA) Handicraft Project, which at one time provided employment for a high of thirteen hundred fifty employees and ran for seven years beginning in the summer of 1935 and ending in February 1943. The project’s local sponsor was the Milwaukee State Teachers College; a member of their faculty, Elsa Ulbricht, served as the director of the Handicraft Project. Well-illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs, all areas included in the project are covered, including: woodworking of both toys and furniture; doll making; design and production of theater costumes; bookbinding; textile printing; weaving; and, rug making.

    Reviewed: Kersten, Andrew (reviewer). Voyageur , v. 21, no. 2 (Winter/Spring 2005), p. 64.

  2. Stevens, Michael E. Women Remember the War, 1941-1945. Madison, Wis.: State Historical Society of Wisconsin; 1993. 157 p. (Voices of the Wisconsin Past.
  3. Troxell, John P. “Wisconsin’s Summer School for Working Women”. American Federationist: Official Magazine of the American Federation of Labor. 1925 Oct; v. 32(no. 10):[943]-945.
    Notes: An account of the first Wisconsin Summer School for Working Women, which was held in 1925 at the campus of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. The Wisconsin school was only the second such summer training program for women working at industrial jobs, with the first having been held at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania (although the Wisconsin school is the first such program at a state university). The instruction lasted for six weeks during the regular summer sessions at the university; forty women from nine Midwestern states attended and instruction was given in three areas: English, economics, and physical education. Some detail is provided about the topics studied and mention is made of production of a publication, “‘The Script,’ a mimeographed class-book edited by the students” (p. 945).
  4. Voelker, Keith Emery. “Financial Incentive Plans for Clerical Employes [sic]”; 1964.
    Notes: M.S. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1964. 167 leaves. In conjunction with the National Office Management Association (N.O.M.A.), a survey was conducted by the Center for Productivity Motivation of the School of Commerce at the University of Wisconsin to ascertain “the prevalence of clerical incentive plans in the United States and the effectiveness of such plans in practice” (p. 80). Financial incentives were divided into three categories: those financial incentives available to the individual clerical employee at the firm, based on that individual’s own work performance; those available to each clerical employee within a small group of the clerical employees at the firm, based on the work performance of their own small group; and, those available to the entire group of clerical employees at a firm, based on the financial performance of their firm as a whole. The study reports on the over-all experience of the 648 responding firms with the use of incentive systems for clerical work. A key finding of the study was that almost thirty-five percent of the businesses reported use of some form of financial incentive for clerical work.

    Copies of the survey developed for this study were distributed to all members of forty-five randomly-selected N.O.M.A. chapters, with each N.O.M.A. chapter representing a wide range of types and sizes of business firms. The Madison, Wisconsin N.O.M.A. chapter was included among the randomly-selected group and sixteen of the chapter’s 108 members completed and returned the surveys. As is typical of this type of survey, however, none of the survey’s responses are reported by city or state. The complete text of the survey developed for this study is included here in an appendix.

  1. Wilson, Nellie. “Nellie Wilson: A Black Woman Meets the Union”. IN: Holter, Darryl, editor. Workers and Unions in Wisconsin: A Labor History Anthology. Madison, Wis.: State Historical Society of Wisconsin; 1999; pp. 184-185.
    Notes: The on-the-job experiences of a pioneering African-American woman unionist, who was hired during World War II for defense work at the A.O. Smith plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Smith plant was represented by the United Steelworkers of America. Her comments were made at the Wisconsin Labor History Society Conference on April 22, 1989, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
  2. Wisconsin Extension Homemakers Council. Taste Wisconsin History: Oral History Cookbook Reader. Hargraves, Priscilla Georgia Hoberg and Betty Pipkorn, eds. River Falls, Wis.: River Falls Journal; 1987. viii, 92 p.
    Notes: “From an oral history project of the Wisconsin Extension Homemakers Council, Inc., to commemorate their 50th anniversary, 1940-1990”–title page. The interviews forming the basis of this book were done between September 1983-June 1987 with the interviewees all being members of the Wisconsin Extension Homemakers; interspersed throughout the memories of the women are many recipes, all of which originally came from Wisconsin Extension Bulletins and Special Circulars, unless otherwise identified. Some of the stories told by the women pre-date the anniversary date of 1940 because there were some county councils created before the statewide council came into existence. An index of the interviewees’ county of origin is included; thirty-seven counties are represented among the interviewees.
  3. Zieger, Robert H. “Battery Workers at War”. IN: Holter, Darryl. Workers and Unions in Wisconsin: A Labor History Anthology. Madison, Wis.: State Historical Society of Wisconsin; 1999; pp. 169-174. Notes: Excerpted from his book, The Madison Battery Workers, 1934-1952: A History of Federal Labor Union 19587 (Ithaca, N.Y.: New York State School of Industrial & Labor Relations, Cornell University Press, 1977).