Indigenous Women, Work, and History

When dealing with Indigenous women’s history we are conditioned to think about women as private-sphere figures, circumscribed by the home, the reserve, and the community. Moreover, in many ways Indigenous men and women have been cast in static, pre-modern, and one-dimensional identities, and their twentieth century experiences reduced to a singular story of decline and loss. Indigenous Women, Work, and History rejects both of these long-standing conventions by presenting case studies of Indigenous domestic servants, hairdressers, community health representatives, and nurses working in “modern Native ways.” By placing the history of these modern workers within a broader historical context McCallum challenges us to think about Indigenous women’s history in entirely new ways.