A Lifetime of Labor: The Autobiography of Alice H. Cook

by Alice H. Cook, Arlene Kaplan Daniels

Overview

The work of the indefatigable Alice Hanson Cook has benefitted the lives of working people—and especially working women—on four continents. Her pioneering work in union organizing, worker education, and equal rights for working women took her across the country and around the world, across racial, ethnic, national, and class lines, and across boundries she refused to accept as impassable.

In A Lifetime of Labor, Cook recounts a remarkable life that spans a century and intersects with progressive movements at home and abroad. Booklist calls A Lifetime of Labor “the autobiography of an enduring and persistent activist. Appropriately, the book closes with Cook’s ‘Agenda for Change,’ which calls for a ‘new definition of equality’ to recognize the needs and rights of women and men in their roles as both parents and workers. At age 94, Alice Cook was still fighting the good fight.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558611894
Publisher:	Feminist Press at CUNY, The
Publication date:	09/01/2000
Series:	The Cross-Cultural Memoir Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	354
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Alice H. Cook (1903-1998) was a professor in the New York State College of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell Universityand a member of the executive board of Cornell's Women's Studies Program. Her books include The Most Difficult Revolution: Women and Trade Unions and The Working Mother: A Survey of Problems and Progress in Nine Countries.

Editorial Reviews

Cook died in February 1998, at the age of 94, ending a life-long career in labor activism. She is best known for her research on and programs for working women. Following early work with the YWCA, she spent nearly 30 years at Cornell Universitys College of Industrial and Labor Relations. In 1978, the Ford Foundation published her book, The Working Mother, based on international study of womens and household conditions. A 1993 film, Never Done: The Working Life of Alice H. Cook, documented her life and work. Now she has chronicled her full life story from her birth in 1903. Drawn from her own diaries and notes, this book is both graceful autobiography and perceptive social history that will be of lasting value to students of labor history and feminist studies. An important addition for both academic and public libraries.Linda V. Carlisle, Southern Illinois Univ., Edwardsville

Library Journal

A spirited autobiography by a pioneering feminist, labor organizer, socialist, and scholar. Alice Hanson Cook (1903-98) may not be a household name, but she helped change the American workplace culture by pressing for, among other things, comparable-worth legislation (whereby women earn as much as men for doing the same work) and policies aimed at bettering the lot of working women. In this autobiography, completed just before her death, she writes of her education as an activist. As a pacifist during and just after WWI, she encountered jingoist scorn, as well as the displeasure of her Spanish-American War veteran father, who "deplored my activities"; she later traveled to Weimar Germany to study, and there she witnessed the rise of Nazism, which, like so many other foreign observers, she thought a passing phase of German discontent. Converted to socialism, she returned to the US, lived in a commune informally called "Soviet House," held a great variety of odd jobs (which prepared her, she writes, to understand the true nature of "women's work"), and later became a teacher of labor history and labor education at Cornell University. As a scholar, Cook studied the economic role of working women in several cultures, traveling widely through Europe and East Asia; as an activist connected with entities like the Ford Foundation, she was able to advance her case that women should be more justly rewarded for their indispensable contributions in the workplace and at home. Her book closes with reflections on her long struggle for equality-and with a firm slap at the Republican Contract with America, which, she says, "abandoned the helpless by equating poverty with laziness." A worthy addition tothe literature of labor activism and women's studies. (b&w photos, not seen) .

Kirkus Reviews

"A spirited autobiography by a pioneering feminist, labor organizer, socialist and scholar."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Drawn from [Cook’s] own diaries and notes, this book is both graceful autobiography and perceptive social history that will be of lasting value."
—Library Journal

"This is a deeply satisfying memoir by a very great lady."
—Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

"Richly rewarding reading, Alice Cook's autobiography seems destined to become one of the most vital histories of progressive women in the twentieth century. . . . She created paths for women at the same time that she promoted industrial democracy. An extremely moving chronicle that connects our own time with social justice struggles nationally and internationally throughout the century."
—Kathryn Kish Sklar, author of Women's Rights Emerges within the Antislavery Movement

"A Lifetime of Labor expands our understanding of the experience of living in the twentieth century as a participant—and leader—in its many progressive movements. . . . Cook made choices, changed directions, shaped lives—and defied almost all of the pre-1960s stereotypes about women's options."
—Ronnie Steinberg, Director of the Women’s Studies Program Emerita, Vanderbilt University

"This book chronicles the remarkable journey of nine decades by a remarkable woman. From her earliest involvement in worker education to her path-breaking research and advocacy for the special challenges faced by working mothers in the major industrialized countries, Cook has set a high standard of excellence and passion for academics and practitioners."
—Robert B. McKersie, author of The Transformation of American Industrial Relations

"This fascinating autobiography, detailing Alice Cook's lifelong involvement in progressive reform, shows us what one woman can accomplish. We have all benefited from Cook's unsurpassed commitment to improving the welfare of working women."
—Mary Beth Norton, author of Separated by their Sex: Women in Public and Private in the Colonial Atlantic World


"A spirited autobiography by a pioneering feminist, labor organizer, socialist and scholar."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Drawn from [Cook’s] own diaries and notes, this book is both graceful autobiography and perceptive social history that will be of lasting value."
—Library Journal

"This is a deeply satisfying memoir by a very great lady."
—Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

"Richly rewarding reading, Alice Cook's autobiography seems destined to become one of the most vital histories of progressive women in the twentieth century. . . . She created paths for women at the same time that she promoted industrial democracy. An extremely moving chronicle that connects our own time with social justice struggles nationally and internationally throughout the century."
—Kathryn Kish Sklar, author of Women's Rights Emerges within the Antislavery Movement

"A Lifetime of Labor expands our understanding of the experience of living in the twentieth century as a participant—and leader—in its many progressive movements. . . . Cook made choices, changed directions, shaped lives—and defied almost all of the pre-1960s stereotypes about women's options."
—Ronnie Steinberg, Director of the Women’s Studies Program Emerita, Vanderbilt University

"This book chronicles the remarkable journey of nine decades by a remarkable woman. From her earliest involvement in worker education to her path-breaking research and advocacy for the special challenges faced by working mothers in the major industrialized countries, Cook has set a high standard of excellence and passion for academics and practitioners."
—Robert B. McKersie, author of The Transformation of American Industrial Relations

"This fascinating autobiography, detailing Alice Cook's lifelong involvement in progressive reform, shows us what one woman can accomplish. We have all benefited from Cook's unsurpassed commitment to improving the welfare of working women."
—Mary Beth Norton, author of Separated by their Sex: Women in Public and Private in the Colonial Atlantic World

From the Publisher