| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 257 words from this article are provided below; about 542 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Nikki Mandell. The Corporation as Family: The Gendering of Corporate Welfare, 1890–1930. (The Luther Hartwell Hodges Series on Business, Society, and the State.) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2002. Pp. x, 208. Cloth $49.95, paper $19.95.

Based on solid research in numerous corporate archives and good coverage of the relevant secondary literature, this book advances two arguments. First, female welfare managers played a "pioneering role in corporate labor relations," and, second, "the gendered nature of the welfare system laid the groundwork for permanent changes in the American workplace and in employers' relations with their employees" (p. 158). These arguments are sustained through Nikki Mandell's attention to the connections among various models for the corporate "family" and her analysis of the crucial middle layer in corporate organization epitomized by welfare managers. The book reinforces the growing literature on the gendered nature of corporate organization and experience while at the same time charting new layers of complexity in workplace relations. 1

First female, and later male, welfare managers built on assumptions about family and gender to put themselves forward "as models of a new professional business manager" (p. 9), in effect incorporating assumptions about gender into definitions of professionalism. Women made good welfare managers because their gender coding most closely matched their role in the corporate "family" as "mothers." Although welfare work's gender status never achieved the congruence it did in nursing or social work, femaleness and maleness shaped expectations about professionalism and behavior in important ways. . . .

There are about 542 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.