Earning Power: Women and Work in Los Angeles, 1880-1930

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As projects tend to do, this book has grown and evolved over the years. It began as my doctoral dissertation at the University of Utah. I am deeply indebted to the late Dr. Dean May, who encouraged me to pursue my interest in women in the urban West and who saw this dissertation through its formative stages. I also want to thank Dr. Eric Hinderaker, who stepped in as chair following Dr. May’s untimely passing, and Dr. Elizabeth Clement, Dr. David Igler (now of the University of California–Irvine), Dr. Rebecca Horn, and Dr. Lars Rodseth for their help and advice. I would also like to thank the staff, faculty, and graduate students of the History Department at the University of Utah and the 2002–2003 Tanner Humanities Center fellows for their unfailing support and helpful feedback. Extra special thanks goes out to the faculty and staff of the History Department at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, where I have been happy to work for the past several years. I could not ask for more supportive colleagues. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the staff of the five institutions where I conducted much of my research: the Urban Archives Center at California State University in Northridge; the University of California at Los Angeles’s University Research Library, Department of Special Collections; the University of Southern California’s Special Collections Department in Los Angeles; the Southern California Library for Social Studies Research in Los Angeles; and the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Research for this project was funded in part by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the Huntington Library, an hssc/Haynes Research Stipend from the Historical Society of Southern California, a Graduate Fellowship from the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah, a University Teaching Assistantship from the University of Utah, and awards from the Department of History at the University of Utah. No woman is an island, and I send special thanks to my friends Anna Blaine, Cristina Honles, and Susan Hwang, who have seen me though all the AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S xiv Acknowledgments ups and downs and heard more than they ever wanted to about this project. I owe my greatest debt, however, to my family. They gave me their unstinting support (emotional, intellectual, and often financial) whenever I needed it. Alice, David, Lorraine, and John Wallis—this book is as much yours as it is mine. EAR N I N G P OW E R ...