The Potential Radical Transformation of Household Work

Maniza Ahmed, University of Chicago

During times of economic hardship, the work of caring, nurturing, and providing for other family members can be incredibly challenging, as was the case during the Depression. Albeit a temporary, vexed attempt at the public provision of social care under the New Deal government, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) included working-class women, this paper argues, in a radical way. Known as the Household Workers Training Program (which transitioned into the Household Service Demonstration Project) and the Housekeeping Aide Project, these WPA programs were directed at women to become household workers, trained in all types of housework, or as housekeeping aides equipped to provide childcare and homecare services to the elderly or individuals with chronic illness. This paper examines how the state addressed problems of domestic service and care work through these contentious programs in order to illuminate how ideologies of gender, race, and class informed and shaped the political economy of domestic labor.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 29. Social Reproduction Politics and the Boundaries of Economic Rights