History, Memory, and Household Worker Organizing – Apr 4

Posted by New Century Trust on March 19, 2019

Premilla Nadasen, Professor of History, Barnard College will speak on Thursday, April 4, 2019, 6:30–7:30 pm at the Cherry Street Room, Friends Center, 1501 Cherry St, Philadelphia, PA 1910. The event is co-sponsored with the New Century Trust.

Twenty years ago, Phyllis Palmer published Domesticity and Dirt: Housewives and Domestic Servants in the United States, 1920-1945. The book recounts how white middle class housewives focused on what were seen as more refined aspects of keeping house, relegating the hard physical work and demeaning service tasks to servants—mainly women of color. It has now been reissued in a freely available online format by Temple University Press. In celebration of its return, please join us for a talk by historian Premilla Nadasen. Using Domesticity and Dirt as a launching pad, Nadasen will discuss the women of color who took over domestic responsibilities in white homes in the 1960s and 1970s. During that time, African American household workers formed the first-ever national organization to represent them.

Registration requested. Register at http://tinyurl.com/tupnadasen