The Gender of Breadwinners

The contributors to this forum on “great books” reflect on the impact of Joy Parr’s The Gender of Breadwinners on their own research and on the field of Canadian history. Parr’s award-winning book focuses on two small industrial towns in southern Ontario: Paris, where most of the wage earners were women, and Hanover, where most workers were men. Informed by feminist theory, it was a path-breaking study that challenged established dichotomies in social theory to make sense of the sexual division of labour and gender and class roles. Contributors, at various career stages, discuss the theoretical and methodological innovations that Parr brought to the historical analysis of waged work, domesticity, migration, labour processes, gender and class identities, and community relations.