Betsy Israel: Bachelor Girl

Harland, Marian, 51–52

Harlow, Jean, 141 n

Hartmann, Susan, 169–70

Hawes, Elizabeth, 174

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 17, 38

heads of household, 208–9, 234–35, 239

Heape, Walter, 144

heartless women, 156–59, 172, 249

Herland (Gilman), 34

Herodotus, 37

Herrick, Genevieve Forbes, 154

Heterodoxy, 117

Hickok, Lorena, 154

Hoffe, Sally, 222, 223

Hoffert, Emily, 227–28

Hoffman, Alice, 176

Hoffman, Carol A., 229

Holding Their Own (Scharf), 160

holidays, 260–61

homeless women, 154–56, 159

Hospital Sketches (Alcott), 45

“Hot Corn: Life Scenes in New York” (Robinson), 66

Howe, Marie Jenny, 117

Howells, William Dean, 64

How I Became Hettie Jones (Jones), 205

How to Be Happy While Single (Van Ever), 174–75

Humphreys, Mary Gay, 87–88, 96, 97, 105

Hungry Hearts (Yezierska), 67

Hutchins, Grace, 154

immigrants, 33, 36, 56–57, 62, 109, 122

immigrant working girls, 9, 56–84, 96–97

American style embraced by, 60, 66–69

assimilation of, 60, 67

banged hairstyles of, 69

beauty advice sought by, 68–69

Bowery gals, 56–57, 70–75, 127, 229

clothing of, 61, 67–68, 74–75

daily life of, 78–84

domestic servants, 55, 58, 60–61, 73

factory girls, 9, 56, 58–60, 61, 68, 73, 77, 79, 83, 85, 86, 87–88, 91, 94, 97

family homes of, 57–58, 66, 67, 75–76

fantasy names of, 10

in films, 66, 67

Irish, 55, 58, 60, 72–73

living quarters of, 58, 66–67, 79–80

male abusiveness risked by, 70–72

as moral calamity, 57

pay handed over by, 58, 70, 140

in penny press, 62–66

pidgin dialects of, 87–88

prostitution of, 58, 59, 74, 75, 78, 83, 94

salaries of, 76–77

strikes staged by, 59

“treating” of, 70–71

working conditions of, 58–61, 81

Improvised Woman, The (Clements), 8

Independent, 50, 104–5, 108, 115, 122

“Independent Woman and Other Lies, The” (Roiphe), 255–56

Internet, 244–45

intersexuality, 142–43

inversion, sexual, 143

“It,” 130–31

It (film), 97, 131, 132

Ivory Soap girl, 126, 129

Jacob A. Stamler, 105

Jaffe, Rona, 206

James, Henry, 23, 114

Jane Eyre (Brontë), 20

Janeway, Elizabeth, 39

Jarman, Rufus, 185

Jennie Gerhardt (Dreiser), 53

Job, The (Lewis), 146

job stealers, 150, 152, 156

Johnson, Joyce Glassman, 200, 204, 205

Jones, Hettie Cohen, 204, 205

journalists, female, 152–53, 154

June Bride, 177

Kate and Leopold, 263–64

Katz, Susan Leslie, 16

Keller, Helen, 40

Kellogg, Elenore, 154

Kerouac, Jack, 181, 204, 205

Kinsey Report on Female Sexuality, 188

Kirk, Virginia, 134–35

Kitty Foyle (Morley), 55, 101–2, 103–4, 106–7

Klemesrud, Judy, 227, 229

Knudson, Kneith, 144

“Labor in New York” (Foster), 66

Lady Audley’s Secret (Braddon), 48

Lambert, Eleanor, 191

Larcom, Lucy, 26, 31, 33

Lauder, Estée, 191

Laughlin, Clara E., 86

Lawrence, Josephine, 141

laws, 22 n, 77, 120

abortion, 31, 109

on contraceptives, 31, 109

credit, 234

divorce, 27, 109

draft, 170

Girl Terms Act, 204

inheritance, 48

Mann Act, 124

marriage, 27

on married women holding jobs, 150

suffrage, 36, 45, 119, 126

on women’s smoking, 114–15

on workplace restrictions, 169

lesbians, 10–11, 28–29, 188, 249

mannish, 143

in sexology, 143–44, 145

WACs as, 169

LeSueur, Meridel, 155

Letters to a Business Girl (Saunders), 99–100, 102–3

Letter to Three Wives, A 177

Lewis, Sinclair, 146, 163

Liberty: A Better Husband (Chambers-Schiller), 25–26

Linton, Eliza Lynn, 38

living arrangements, 58, 66–67, 79–80, 89

all-girl hotels, 106–7, 194–96

latchkey, 104–7

in 1960s, 208–9, 212, 214, 220, 221, 223–24, 225

see also communal living

Long Day, The (Richardson), 55, 78–83, 84

Looking for Mr. Goodbar, 8, 230–31

love letters, female, 29–30

Lowell girls, 31, 83

Luce, Clare Booth, 39–40

Lundberg, Ferdinand, 172–73

McCarthy, Mary, 151

MacDonald, Dwight, 199

macho career woman, 248–49

MacLaine, Shirley, 185

Macpherson, Annie, 35

McPherson, Scott, 52–53

Main Street (Lewis), 146

Mann Act, 124

Mannequin, 140

mannish lesbians, 143

man shortages, 171, 172, 176, 183, 237–38, 250

Marjorie Morningstar, 186, 198

marriage, 2, 3, 102, 115–16, 129, 248

in British common law, 27

dangers of, 31, 89

Depression era and, 151, 161–62

domestic feminists’ view of, 27–28

as duty, 26–27

flappers and, 129, 135, 136, 137

of immigrant working girls, 62

inequality in, 28

maiden name retained in, 29, 74

male drinking and, 31

male preferences and, 115, 119

of new women, 115, 119

new women’s rejection of, 115–16, 117

as 1950s norm, 183–86, 187, 188, 189–96, 206, 209, 252

in 1960s, 208, 209, 211, 222, 223, 232

in 1970s, 234

in 1980s and 1990s, 250, 251–56

as oppressive institution, 27

in postwar period, 170–71, 175

rates of, 30, 116, 151, 184

sex in, 142, 145

shop girls and, 89, 97

single blessedness vs., 25–30, 31–32, 34, 35, 40, 41, 42, 45, 53

upper-class women and, 18–19

married working women, 150, 215, 247

Marvin’s Room (McPherson), 52–53

Mary Tyler Moore Show, The, 233–34, 258

Mead, Margaret, 191

Meehan, Diana, 227

Meet Millie, 197

Menehin, Thomas, 155

Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 101, 115

Miller, Jean Baker, 239

Miller’s New York as It Is, 72

Millet, Kate, 237 n

Mills, C. Wright, 103

Milton, John, 27

Minister’s Charge, The (Howells), 64

Minor Characters (Johnson), 200, 205

Miss America pageants, 132

Modern Woman: The Lost Sex (Farnham and Lundberg), 172–73

Molière, 16

Moore, Colleen, 113, 130–31, 133

Morley, Christopher, 55, 101–102, 103–4, 107

Moskowitz, Belle, 121

murders, single girl, 227–31, 240–41

Murphy Brown, 248–49

Muses, 37

Muzzy, Aretemus B., 26

Nashoba commune, 35

neurotic husband hunters, 157, 172–75

conduct guides for, 174–75

as half a human unit, 173–74, 186

new dependency, 140–41, 150

new spinsters, 29, 138–47

families as financial drain on, 140–41

lifestyle of, 138–39

limitations of, 145–47

as socially pathetic, 145

see also sexology

new women, 9, 114–38

causes supported by, 159–60

college education of, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 127

criminal tendencies of, 121

feminist meetings organized by, 116–17

as Gibson girls, 9, 124–26, 129

marriage rejected by, 115–16, 117

marriages of, 115, 119

meaning of term, 114–15

popular vs. reformist, 118–21, 134

purchasing power of, 125–26

sexology of, 117–18

smoking by, 114–15, 116, 130, 132, 133, 134

tea dances of, 120–21, 127

white slavery and, 122–24, 125

see also flappers