Earning Respect

Earning Respect examines the lives of white and blue-collar women workers in Peterborough between 1920 and 1960 and notes the emerging changes in their work lives, as working daughters gradually became working mothers.

Joan Sangster is a Vanier Professor Emeritus at Trent University.

'Sangster's approach is refreshing in the ways she weaves together gender and class, treating them as symbiotic. ... The book also achieves a successful synthesis in moving beyond the separate spheres of household and market, because Sangster found that she had to explore women's family and community life to understand social relations in the paid workforce.'

Suzanne Morton:

'Joan Sangster has written a readable and important book which combines many of the best elements of women's history, working-class history and a community study. Her ambitious study looks into the lives of two generations of working women in Peterborough, Ontario.'