Household Labor and Immigration Policy in Early 20th-Century Chicago

Cristina Groeger, Lake Forest College

Paid domestic work in the U.S. was characterized by distinctive regional labor markets that shifted demographically from Irish immigrants, to African Americans migrants, to predominantly Latin American and Caribbean immigrants (documented and undocumented) between the 19th and 21st centuries. The paid domestic worker labor market has also reflected changes in the cultural norms of unpaid domestic work by wives and mothers, technological advancements, and the opening and closing of national borders to immigrants. This paper focuses on the role of federal and local immigration policy in shaping the shift from Irish, German, and Scandinavian women to African American women as the primary occupants of household labor in early-to-mid-20th century Chicago. Through the lens of migration, this paper contributes to a burgeoning literature that crosses national containers to reinterpret the social and racialized construction of the least valued form of women’s work in the U.S. political economy.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 125. Immigration Policy, Household Workers, and the Politics of Reproductive Labor