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Experts and Servants: The National Council on Household Employment and the Decline of Domestic Service in the Twentieth Century

Promoting the "classroom and playground of Europe": Swiss private school prospectuses and education-focused tourism guides, 1890-1945

My dissertation uses the activities of the United States Young Women’s Christian Association (USYWCA) as a case study to explore U.S. cultural imperialism in India, Argentina, the Philippines, and Nigeria. USYWCA Secretaries aspired to create an apolitical and nongovernmental space, which I have labeled “Y-space.” According to its proponents, Y-space would not only be located in physical places and programs, but would also extend to create a global fellowship of women. Liberal, emancipatory, and ecumenical, this space would be tied in Christian fellowship to other organizations such as the Young Men’s Christian Association and the World Student Christian Federation. However, it would also ideally reach beyond a purely religious fellowship. USYWCA Secretaries intended that Y-space would be a feminist space, which would advance women’s interests and equality with men. They envisioned Y-space as modern, egalitarian, and based in voluntary association that valued individualism and was ultimately generated from the grass-roots. USYWCA Secretaries also envisioned Y-space as transformative, as it enabled women to absorb a common sensibility, regardless of their geographic location. Women within Y-space would therefore be cosmopolitan and color blind, valuing women from diverse classes, races, and nations. Because USYWCA Secretaries generally eschewed rhetorics of nation and empire, they tended to view their efforts as politically neutral and even at times anti-imperial. However, I find their efforts to be more mixed and nuanced. Each of the chapters therefore addresses not only the intentions of the USYWCA Secretaries, but also the ways that their attempts to achieve Y-space often served to bolster or perpetuate existing race, class, and national hierarchies. In chapter one, I assess the efforts of USYWCA Secretaries to establish Y-

'Not by might, nor by power, but by spirit': the global reform efforts of the Young Women's Christian Association of the United States, 1895-1939

This introductory article has two dimensions that are addressed simultaneously. First, it focuses on the international developments, to highlight and explore some of the findings of the International Labour Organization's (ILO) law and practice report on Decent Work for Domestic Workers. Second, it reflects on the contributions in this special issue to the broader deliberative process of identifying and critiquing labour regulatory frameworks as an empowerment strategy for historically marginalized women, such as domestic workers. This introduction suggests that a labour regulatory framework that both secures domestic workers rights in context and creates an enabling framework to support domestic workers' exercise of agency is a crucial part of a reconstructionist project, which that may accompany, but is not a substitute for, a broader project of social transformation.

Introduction: Regulating Decent Work for Domestic Workers

Feminist social scientists around the advanced industrial world have given anxious attention in recent years to the possibility of the 'return of servants': that is, an increase in household purcha...

Experts and Servants: The National Council on Household Employment and the Decline of Domestic Service in the Twentieth Century

Citations

Promoting the "classroom and playground of Europe": Swiss private school prospectuses and education-focused tourism guides, 1890-1945

'Not by might, nor by power, but by spirit': the global reform efforts of the Young Women's Christian Association of the United States, 1895-1939

Introduction: Regulating Decent Work for Domestic Workers

A Struggle for Recognition: Work Life Reform in the Domestic Services Industry

Title of dissertation: SECOND-WAVE FEMINISM IN THE

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