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In the volatility of the Civil War, the federal government opened its payrolls to women. Although the press and government officials considered the federal employment of women to be an innocuous wartime aberration, women immediately saw the new development for what it was: a rare chance to obtain well-paid, intellectually challenging work in a country and time that typically excluded females from such channels of labor. Thousands of female applicants from across the country flooded Washington with applications. Here, Jessica Ziparo traces the struggles and triumphs of early female federal employees, who were caught between traditional, cultural notions of female dependence and an evolving movement of female autonomy in a new economic reality. In doing so, Ziparo demonstrates how these women challenged societal gender norms, carved out a place for independent women in the streets of Washington, and sometimes clashed with the female suffrage movement.

Examining the advent of female federal employment, Ziparo finds a lost opportunity for wage equality in the federal government and shows how despite discrimination, prejudice, and harassment, women persisted, succeeding in making their presence in the federal workforce permanent.

Table of Contents

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  1. Cover
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  1. Half Title, Series Info, Title Page, Copyright, Dedication
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  1. Contents
  2. pp. vii-viii
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  1. Illustrations
  2. pp. ix-x
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  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. xi-xii
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  1. Introduction. We Are Not Playthings
  2. pp. 1-14
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  1. Chapter One. I Wonder if I Cannot Make Application for an Appointment Too: Women Join the Federal Workforce
  2. pp. 15-38
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  1. Chapter Two. Telling Her Story to a Man: Applying for Government Work
  2. pp. 39-66
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  1. Chapter Three. Teapots in the Treasury of the Nation: Gendering Work and Space
  2. pp. 67-99
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  1. Chapter Four. A Strange Time to Seek a Residence in Washington: Perils and Possibilities of Life for Female Federal Clerks
  2. pp. 100-137
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  1. Chapter Five. The Picked Prostitutes of the Land: Reputations of Female Federal Employees
  2. pp. 138-169
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  1. Chapter Six. I Am Now Exerting All My Thinking Powers: Women’s Struggle to Retain and to Regain Federal Positions
  2. pp. 170-192
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  1. Chapter Seven. What Makes Us to Differ from Them?: The Argument for Equal Pay in the Nation’s Capital
  2. pp. 193-220
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  1. Epilogue: We Do Not Intend to Give Up
  2. pp. 221-226
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  1. Notes
  2. pp. 227-316
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  1. Bibliography
  2. pp. 317-332
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  1. Index
  2. pp. 333-340
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