Bachelor Girl (41 page)
Authors: Betsy Israel
Tags: #Social Science, #Women's Studies, #History, #United States, #20th Century, #Media Studies
of immigrant working girls, 58, 59, 74, 75–78, 83, 94
as vagrancy (loitering), 76, 106
white slavery and, 122–24
purchase brides, 20
Quaaludes, 241
Quinn, Roseanne, 230
“race suicide,” 33, 109–10, 111, 116, 142
rackets, 88–89, 92, 93, 96, 103, 107, 120, 124
radio soap operas, 178
Rainy Day Club, 90
rape, 70–71, 155, 241
Rear Window,
193
Reisman, David, 179
Rhys, Jean, 164
Richardson, Dorothy, 55, 78–83, 84, 194
Roberts, Julia, 40
Robinson, Grace, 154
Robinson, Solon, 66
Robles, Richard, 227–28
Roiphe, Katie, 255–56
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 36, 40, 154, 155, 159
Roosevelt, Theodore, 33, 109, 116
Rosenteur, Phyllis, 211
Rosie the Riveter, 166, 167
rubbering, 88, 91
Rules, The
(Fein and Schneider), 258–59
Sagan, Françoise, 185–86
Salem witch trials, 17, 21
Salinger, J. D., 198
Sands, Alma, 71–72
Sanger, Margaret, 115
Sarmiento, Domingo, 29
Saunders, Florence Wenderoth, 99–100, 102–3
Sawyer, Lanah, 70–71
Sayers, Dorothy L., 17
Scharf, Lois, 160
Scudder, Vida, 26
Seberg, Jean, 186
Sedgwick, Catherine M., 27
settlement houses, 35–37, 143
Seventh Heaven
(Hoffman), 176
Sex and the City,
1, 262–63
Sex and the Single Girl
(Brown), 212
sexology, 111, 117–18, 141–45, 156
frigidity in, 142, 144, 145, 172, 198
lesbianism in, 143–44, 145
typology of, 142–43
Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York
(Parent), 231
shop girls, shoppies, 9, 84–98, 103, 127, 128, 232
“blue Mondays” of, 91
clothing of, 85–86, 89–91
controlled facial expressions of, 86, 94–95
critics of, 90–91
dances attended by, 88–89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96
dress reform desired by, 90–91
education of, 97
“fairy days” of, 92, 94
in films, 97
free-time activities of, 88–89, 95–96
living quarters of, 89, 105
male sales clerks vs., 86
nascent feminism of, 93
newsletters of, 92–93
salaries of, 86
store social clubs formed by, 92, 94
teaching profession entered by, 97
“treating” of, 88, 94
upper-class women vs., 93–94
working conditions of, 85–88, 91, 92, 94–95
youth of, 91–92
shopping bag ladies, 241
Showalter, Elaine, 39
Show Boat,
23
n
single blessedness, 25–48, 53, 114
exemplars of, 40–48
marriage proposals rejected in, 26, 31–32
public taunts endured in, 32–33
special friends in, 28–30
see also
communal living
single girl murders, 227–31, 240–41
“Singleness of Heart” (Katz), 16
single parents, 222, 223, 235
singles bars, 222, 229
singles industry, 220–21
singles scene, 219–22, 240
Single Woman, The
(Rosenteur), 211
siren, 137–38
Sister Carrie
(Dreiser), 8, 59
slacker spinsters, 256–59
“slumming,” 64, 73, 93–94
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll, 30, 36
smoking, 114–15, 116, 130, 132, 133, 134, 143, 158
Smollett, Tobias, 16–17
Southgate, Eliza, 25
Speck, Richard, 228
spieling, 88–89, 93, 128
spinsters, 9, 14–53, 56, 57, 105–6, 109, 110, 129, 135–36, 190, 197, 219
behavior required of, 23–24
courtesan training proposed for, 21
deportation proposed for, 20–21, 23, 32
Depression era and, 161–62
in early America, 21–25
in 1851 British census, 19–21
in 1855
U.S. census, 23
first appearance of, 15–16, 18
free labor provided by, 139, 186
n
in industrial revolution, 18–21
as insane, 16, 29, 53
lesbians and, 11, 28–29
in literature, 14, 16–17, 19–20, 24, 48–53
maintaining contact among, 50
as widows-manqué, 23
n
work sought by, 18, 19–20, 23, 50
see also
new spinsters; old maids
spinster stories, 50–52, 156–57, 262
Stanley, Henry Morton, 62
Stanley, Olga, 112
Stansell, Christine, 58, 71, 89
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 33
Steel, Dawn, 250
Steinem, Gloria, 210, 211, 213, 218, 235–37
Sterling, Claire Wellesley, 94
stock-market crash (1929), 147
Stoner, Lucy, 74
Storm, Gale, 196
stronger sex, women as, 172
Suckow, Ruth, 108–9, 163–64
suffrage movement, 74, 100, 114, 117
laws achieved by, 36, 45, 119, 126
political agitation in, 114, 173
Sullivan’s Travels,
155
Swanson, Gloria, 130
sweatshops, 58
syphilis, 68, 123
“Tabitha,” as name, 17
“Tale of Not So Flaming Youth, A” (Kirk), 134–35
tampons, 128, 218
Tarbell, Ida, 50, 115, 117
Tarkington, Booth, 102
tea dances, 120–21
telephone operators, 103
n,
152
Temple, Shirley, 178
Terrible Honesty
(Douglas), 127
Thackeray, William Makepeace, 20, 48
Thomas, M. Carey, 26
Thompson, Bertha “Boxcar Bertha,” 154
Thompson, Dorothy, 146
n
Three on a Match,
158–59
Tompkins, Juliet Wilbor, 111–12, 145
Totenberg, Nina, 219
Toward a New Psychology of Women
(Miller), 239
Traffic in Souls,
122–23
“transient bureaus,” 154
T. R. Baskin,
231–32
“treating,” 70–71, 88, 94, 135
Triangle Shirtwaist fire, 60
Trilby
(Du Maurier), 110, 125
Trollope, Anthony, 48, 262
Trowmart Inn, 105–7
Truman, Harry, 175
tuberculosis, risk of, 136
Types from City Streets
(Hapgood), 91
Ugly Girl Papers, The
(Power), 69
University of Michigan, 194, 211–12
upper-class women, 117, 124
clothing of, 74–75
department stores and, 85
as domestic employers, 60–61
feminist, 109
muddy hems of, 74, 90
“slumming” by, 93–94
as spinsters, 18–19
urban sketch, 63–64
Ursuline religious order, 34–35
Valentine’s Day, 260
Van de Warker, Ely, 142
Van Ever, Jean, 174–75
Vanity Fair
(Thackeray), 48
Viorst, Judith, 226
WACs (Women’s Army Corps), 168–69, 170
Wald, Lillian, 36
war brides, 171, 185
wartime jobs, 164–70
black women in, 166–67
in Civil War, 45, 46–47, 90
competence in, 167–68
for educated women, 165
in films, 167–68
number of, 165, 169
preparatory campaign for separation from, 168–69
propaganda for, 130
n,
165–66
temporary nature of, 167, 168–70
WACs in, 168–69, 170
in World War I, 129, 130, 142–43
Wasserstein, Wendy, 40
Welter, Barbara, 27
Wharton, Edith, 19–20
“What About Alice?” (Cohen), 248
What Should We Do with Our Daughters?
(Livermore), 142
“What’s Wrong with Ambition?” (Weaver), 189–90
Wheeton, Ellen “Nelly,” 34
Where Are My Children?,
38–39
white slavery, 122–24, 125
Who’s Who
(1902), 116
“Why Women Don’t Marry” (Tompkins), 111–12, 145
widows, 172, 198–99, 209, 235
widows-manqué, 23
n
Wilcox, Susanne, 115
Wilson, Edmund, 129–30
Wine of Youth,
132–33
witches, 17, 197
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 37–38
womanists, 109, 114
Women, The
(Luce), 39–40
Women of New York, or Social Life in the Great City, The
(Ellington), 77
Women of Steel,
166
Women’s Bureau, U.S., 147, 175
women’s colleges, 26, 114, 143
“women’s” jobs, 103, 150, 152, 170, 178
Women’s Moral Reform Society, 31
women’s movement, 208, 233, 234, 236, 251
see also
feminists
Women Who Went to the Field, The
(Barton), 47
Wonder Woman,
167
Woolf, Virginia, 110
Wordsworth, William, 17
Work-a-day Girl: A Study of Some Present-Day Conditions, The
(Laughlin), 86
Working Girl,
101
World War I, 126, 127, 129, 130, 142–43
World War II, 146
n,
164–70, 178
see also
postwar period; wartime jobs
Wright, Fanny, 35
Wylie, Janet, 227–28
Wylie, Philip, 228
Wyman, Jane, 198–99
“yellowback” romance novels, 60
“Yellow Wallpaper, The” (Gilman), 47–48
Yezierska, Anzia, 66–67, 69
Zaharias, Babe Didrikson, 155
Ziegfeld Follies, 94
B
ETSY
I
SRAEL
is a journalist and former editor who has contributed to the
New York Times
,
Elle
,
Rolling Stone
,
GQ
,
Harper’s Bazaar
,
Redbook
,
People
,
Mademoiselle
,
Vogue
,
New York
,
Spin
,
Playboy,
and the
Los Angeles Times
, among many others. She is a former columnist for
Glamour
,
US,
and
New York Woman,
and was a contributing writer for
Mirabella
. She has written numerous screenplays and is the author of a memoir,
Grown-Up Fast: A True Story of Teenage Life in Suburban America
. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
for
Bachelor Girl
“
Bachelor Girl
is such a delectable read that it belies its stature as a profoundly important synthesis. It takes a witty and perceptive stance on the culture, but it’s also a prodigious journalistic investigation that disinters the droll and moving social history of the single woman in America.”
—Marcelle Clements, author of
The Improvised Woman: Single Women Reinventing Single Life
“
Bachelor Girl
is essential reading…. It provides a unique framework for understanding today’s single girl.”
—
USA Today
“Ms. Israel’s book provides a useful history of single working girls and new women of all stripes, from the shop girl to the Gibson goddess to the swinging single…. Replete with both Dickensian details and humorous asides.”
—
New York Times
“When it comes to being a bachelor girl, women have long been stuck with a stigma. Author Betsy Israel explains how to defy it.”
—
Cosmopolitan
“Betsy Israel deconstructs all the old ‘single girl’ stereotypes, providing us with a fresh, perceptive point of view and elevating the bachelor girl to her rightful place in modern American social history—and it’s about time.”
—Susan Seidelman, director,
Sex and the City
and
Desperately Seeking Susan
“Betsy Israel salutes single womanhood from the last century’s spinsters to the career gals of today.”
—
Vanity Fair
“What a read! At long last, a book that really tells it like it is. I loved it!”
—Liz Smith
“A lively history of single women, shifting between the facts of women’s lives and their representation in the media…. Fascinating.”
—
Boston Globe
“A must-read for contemporary bachelor girls. Israel’s insightful study examines the plight of the single woman as a social phenomenon from the mid-1900s to the present.”
—
Booklist
“Betsy Israel explores, in a thoughtful and entertaining style, why society persists in finding nonconforming women both threatening and perplexing.”
—
Elle
(Canada)
“Required reading!”
—
New York Post
“Betsy Israel’s social history covers everything from 1920s flappers to 1970s career girls, with wit and style. A must-read for feminists with a sense of humor.”
—
Marie Claire
“Single women are still designated as different from the other kind, not a group any single figure is particularly comfortable to be signed up with. What is this categorizing about? Betsy Israel’s brilliant new book takes us through a century of ‘different-ness’ and explores why it might be extant.”
—Helen Gurley Brown, former
Cosmopolitan
editor in chief and author of
Sex and the Single Girl
“[
Bachelor Girl
] is not one history but two: an examination of popular perceptions about single women since the Industrial Revolution paired with the lesser-known truth about how women actually inhabited their roles…. Engaging, convincing, even stirring.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
“Israel has an easy journalistic style and clips along at a good pace. She coins some witty phrases—‘the Cult of Independence’—and often breaks for the ironic aside…. An intriguing balance of cultural history and pointed detail.”
—
San Francisco Chronicle
“
Bachelor Girl
takes a revealing look at just how far the single woman has come. For those girls and the country’s women in general,
Bachelor Girl
serves as a reminder, as well as a yardstick: You may have come a long way, but don’t forget the hardy souls who made it possible.”
—
BookPage
“Impressive…. Israel’s witty and provocative look at a topic dear to many women deserves wide readership.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“You can take all the glowing adjectives you know, lay them in a row, and still not have enough to accurately describe this 294-pager that will make your heart sing.”
—
Massachusetts Post-Gazette
“Betsy Israel’s
Bachelor Girl
is the history of women in the U.S.”
—
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