Big Bosses: A Working Girl's Memoir of Jazz Age America

by Althea McDowell Altemus, Robin F. Bachin (Editor), Robin F. Bachin (Noted by), Robin F. Bachin (Afterword)

Overview

“No man is a hero to his valet,” said Montaigne, they say—an aphorism that applies especially to American industrialists and the people who work for them. Behind (or under) these “big bosses” are assistants who become privy to their employers’ social lives and personal tics. Althea Altemus worked for a number of these men in the 1910s and ’20s, starting with James Deering of International Harvester, and Big Bosses is her illustrated memoir. A tart and self-aware writer, Altemus has a good sense of humor and can limn an indelible character in a few sentences. She brings the rarefied milieu of Vizcaya, Deering’s Miami mansion, to vivid life, with all of its Xanaduan extravagances. Altemus also tells us much about high society in Chicago in the 1920s, including the domestic intrigues of a big boss, his wife, and his exceptionally secretive mistress. Altemus was also a single mother, quite a scandal for the time and a fact she needed to hide. She writes of her many struggles in raising her child, Tidbits, and living on her own—giving us a full portrait of a woman who was present at the gilded peak of Jazz Age society but was not a part of it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226423593
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	11/22/2016
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Robin F. Bachin is the Charlton W. Tebeau Associate Professor of History at the University of Miami.


Robin F. Bachin is the Charlton W. Tebeau Associate Professor of History at the University of Miami.


Robin F. Bachin is the Charlton W. Tebeau Associate Professor of History at the University of Miami.

Table of Contents

Foreword
By Joel M. Hoffman
 
Sample Pages from Althea Altemus’s Original Manuscript
 
A Note on the Transcription
 
Big Bosses
 
Afterword
By Robin F. Bachin
 
Acknowledgments
 
Notes

Editorial Reviews

"Big Bosses shows the importance of female subcultures among women workers, the significance of personal bonds of female friendship. It shows how challenging it was for women to forge lives of their own in an era when the vote was newly secured but when other basic rights for women, such as credit and property ownership in their own names, would be contested for decades to come. . . . Big Bosses stands as a real contribution to our understanding of the history of working women in Jazz Age America."

Wall Street Journal

In her remarkable memoir, originally written under the pseudonym ‘A Private Secretary,’ Altemus recounts the wildest indiscretions of her employers between 1918 and 1925. . . . Altemus’ stories expose the challenges for young working women in the 1920s, when employers could fire secretaries for being married, a mother, or blonde. The annotations and afterword by historian Bachin provide context that enriches and clarifies the narrative.”
 

Booklist

Lively and enchanting. . . . Her tales [are] dishy, witty and a ton of fun. . . . It’s unclear what Altemus intended for this manuscript, which she wrote in 1932, but never released. What is clear is that, thanks to the efforts of her descendants, Hoffman, and Bachin, we are lucky now to have this remarkable—and remarkably written—document of everyday life and work in 20th century America from a perspective that is all too rarely seen.”
 

Chicago Tribune

"Big Bosses shows the importance of female subcultures among women workers, the significance of personal bonds of female friendship. It shows how challenging it was for women to forge lives of their own in an era when the vote was newly secured but when other basic rights for women, such as credit and property ownership in their own names, would be contested for decades to come. . . . Big Bosses stands as a real contribution to our understanding of the history of working women in Jazz Age America."

Wall Street Journal

“Lively and enchanting. . . . Her tales [are] dishy, witty and a ton of fun. . . . It’s unclear what Altemus intended for this manuscript, which she wrote in 1932, but never released. What is clear is that, thanks to the efforts of her descendants, Hoffman, and Bachin, we are lucky now to have this remarkable—and remarkably written—document of everyday life and work in 20th century America from a perspective that is all too rarely seen.”
 

Chicago Tribune

“In her remarkable memoir, originally written under the pseudonym ‘A Private Secretary,’ Altemus recounts the wildest indiscretions of her employers between 1918 and 1925. . . . Altemus’ stories expose the challenges for young working women in the 1920s, when employers could fire secretaries for being married, a mother, or blonde. The annotations and afterword by historian Bachin provide context that enriches and clarifies the narrative.”
 

Booklist