Silicon Valley, Women, and the California Dream: Gender, Class, and Opportunity in the Twentieth Century (review)

Glenna Matthews observes in her introduction that this book has along history, beginning with her Stanford University dissertation in the 1970s. Had it found its way into print then, it would have been avery different book, because the growth of the semiconductor industry and the transformation of San Jose into a national economic hub had not yet occurred. Several things move the book beyond its initial dissertation stage. Matthews has done a great deal of additional research in local archives, and she expands her work to include business history and women's political role in the Santa Clara Valley. Her narrative thread benefits from the recent end of the economic cycle that began with the advent of the semiconductor industry in the valley in the 1970s. Finally, the national economic importance of Silicon Valley, unforeseen then, gives the book's themes a larger stage.

Matthews attempts to explain how this valley, with so much prosperity, perfect climate, a history of strong labor unionism, and openness to innovation, could have such a misdistribution of wealth. We could, of course, ask this same question of the entire country (except perhaps for the part about the climate), especially in the age of Bush-onomics, Enron, and the dot-com bubble. If the Santa Clara Valley were purely a regional economy, the answer would not have much use east of theSierras. But this area is both intensely particularistic and, in its guise as Silicon Valley, a region that powered the financial engine of the national economy in the 1980s and 1990s. Thus, the answer to why inequality exists in this particular land of plenty has larger implications.

Silicon Valley, Women, and the California Dream does not provide startling new answers to this question, but it does document the importance of gender and ethnicity in the development of a segmented labor force and the resulting unequal economic opportunities. This focus allows Matthews to argue that the lineaments of the semiconductor industry were not an anomaly in the region's economic history, which has long had an immigrant female labor force and working conditions marred by racism, poor pay, and the general devaluation of women's work. The book also showcases the crucial part that women's leadership played in the economic development of the region. In Silicon Valley Matthews spins two major threads. The first is the social and economic history of the Santa Clara Valley from 1900 to 2000. She traces this central California region's transition from a pastoral "Valley of Heart's Delight" through the development of industrial agriculture; research industries fueled by military spending; the dominance of companies such as Varian Associates, International Business Machines, Novell, Hewlett-Packard, and Cisco Systems; and finally to the outsourcing of jobs and the global impact on the region's economy. With a few substitutions (automobile assembly lines instead of canned apricots, for example), this is the story of the American economy in the twentieth century. The second thread follows the experience of women workers and leaders (union activists, community leaders, city council members, and chief executive officers such as Carleton Fiorina) as they come to terms with and help shape the economy and politics of the Valley, particularly since the 1930s.

Matthews is not entirely successful. Some pieces, such as the history of community activists or the connection between federal government funding and the growth of the semiconductor industry, need more attention. Narrating a regional history with the sweep that implies and chronicling the experience of women from varied class and ethnic backgrounds tend to be different projects, ones that sometimes remain unconnected here. These weaknesses, however, result from the author's laudable ambition to tell as complete an economic story of a region as possible...