Hey, Waitress! (eBook)

The USA from the Other Side of the Tray

Alison Owings (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2002
334 Seiten
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-93122-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Most of us have sat across the tray from a waitress, but how many of us know what really is going on from her side? Hey, Waitress! aims to tell us. Containing lively, personal portraits of waitresses from many different walks of life, this book is the first of its kind to show the intimate, illuminating, and often shocking behind-the-scenes stories of waitresses' daily shifts and daily lives.Alison Owings traveled the country-from border to border and coast to coast-to hear firsthand what waitresses think about their lives, their work, and their world. Part journalism and part oral history, Hey, Waitress! introduces an eclectic cast of characters: a ninety-five-year-old Baltimore woman who may have been the oldest living waitress, a Staten Island firebrand laboring at a Pizza Hut, a well-to-do runaway housewife, a Native American proud of her financial independence, a college student loving her diner more than her studies, a Cajun grandmother of twenty-two, and many others.The book also offers vivid slices of American history. The stories describe the famous sit-in at the Woolworth's counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, which helped spark the civil rights movement; early struggles for waitress unions; and battles against sexually discriminatory hiring in restaurants.A superb and accessible means of breaking down stereotypes, this book reveals American waitresses in all their complexity and individuality, and will surely change the way we order, tip, and, most of all, behave in restaurants.

Inhalt

Prologue

1. A Brief, and Subjective, History of Waitressing
Voices from the Other Side of the Tray

2. Slices of American History
Arleen Garcia
Ima Jean Edwards
Beulah Compton
Verna Welsh
Marguerite Schertle
Cathryn Anita Smith

3. "We Should Be Respected": Professionals
Margie Watson
Réka Nagy
Patty Devon
Melinda Rubke
Tamara Thompson
Dolores Romero

4. High Ends
Wendy Levy
Nella Powell
Martha Shissler
Sandy Ward

5. "It Was Desperation Time": Waitressing as Salvation
Gladys Gilbert
Susan Donley and Linda Bolanos
Catherine Blount
Bertie Halpern
Hilde Meck
Lorraine Talcove

6. Diners and Downward
Rose Marie Willie
Joanne Mulcahy
Sally Merlo
Diana Candee
Jennifer de Haro

7. Worlds Within Worlds
Mary Ellen Foster McEvily
Melissa Mason
Suz Kling
Cynthia Shearer
Mary-Lyons Mouton Ochsner Bruna

8. After Shift
Kathy Anderson
Lucy Rienzo and Co-workers
Oi Yee Lai

Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 2.9.2002
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Beruf / Finanzen / Recht / Wirtschaft ► Geld / Bank / Börse
• Themenwelt: Reisen ► Reiseberichte
• Themenwelt: Reisen ► Reiseführer
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Staat / Verwaltung
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Mikrosoziologie
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft
• Themenwelt: Weitere Fachgebiete ► Handwerk
• Schlagworte: academic • Career • Civil Rights • college student • Daily Life • day to day • Discrimination • essential workers • Finance • Housewife • Interview • Native American • North Carolina • Pizza Hut • restaurant industry • restaurant workers • scholarly • service workers • Staten Island • stereotypes • True story • waiter • waitress • Work • workplace
• ISBN-10: 0-520-93122-X / 052093122X
• ISBN-13: 978-0-520-93122-0 / 9780520931220