The 2011
Berkshire Conference on the History of Women will meet June 9-12, 2011, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This year's theme is “Generations: Exploring Race, Sexuality, and Labor across Time and Space.” The
full program, which is now available on the conference web site, contains a number of sessions of interest to BHC members. Of most direct interest is Session 176, “Managing Women: The Challenges of Iintertwining Gender and Business History”; the full panel contains:
Facilitator: Angel Kwolek-Folland, University of Florida
Susan Yohn, Hofstra University
Diversity as a Business Strategy (or How Liberal Feminism Saved American Capitalism in the Late 20th Century)
Nancy Marie Robertson, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis
The Invisible Hand and the Velvet Glove: Women’s Departments in American Banks
Amy Froide, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
The Business of Investing: The Public Stock Portfolios of Female Investors in 18th-Century Britain
Tanya Roth, Washington University in St. Louis
(Un)Equal Opportunity? The Paradox of Equal Opportunity in the Cold War Military
Pamela Walker Laird, University of Colorado Denver
The Limitations of Equal Opportunity Laws
Elizabeth Brake, Duke University
Re-Imagining the Family Farm: New Roles and Old Limitations for Women in Industrial Agriculture
Sara Alpern, Texas A&M University, College Station
A Businesswoman against Businesswoman: The Paradox of Alice Foote MacDougall
Nikki Mandell, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater
Can Women Be Businessmen?
Sara Damiano, Johns Hopkins University
“To Well and Truly Administer”: Female Administrators and Estate Settlement in Newport, RI, 1730-1776
A partial list of other sessions and papers of interest includes (session numbers in parentheses):
(1) Donica Belisle: "Professionalizing Consumption: The National Council of Women of Canada and the Formation of Modern Consumer Identities, 1893-1939"
(14) "Gender in Corporate Places," with comment by Pamela Walker Laird
(15) Roundtable: "Where Is Women's Work in Studies of Early Modern Culture, Consumption and Credit?"
(35) "Economies of Beauty: Race, Gender, and Marketplaces," chaired by Susannah Walker
(39) "Rethinking Capitalism, Work, and Gender: A Feminist Economics Roundtable," chaired by Tracey Deutsch
(58) "Women in the U.S. Corporation, 1970-1995," chaired by Vicki Howard, with Jennifer Scanlon as commentator
(59) "Consumers, Control, and Women's Economic Activity"
(128) "Cultural Currency: Women, Gender, and the Multiple Meanings of the Marketplace in the U.S., 1870-1925"
(151) Tiffany Gill: " 'Do You Have Time to Wash My Hair and Style It?' African American Beauticians and the Black Freedom Struggle"
(153) "Motherhood, Madonna and the Marketplace: Laywomen and Business Ladies across the Americas, 1750-1900," with comment by Susan Ingalls Lewis
For full information about registration, lodging, and other program events, please see the Berkshire Conference web site.
