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Women in the Workforce

Newspaper clipping, "Blonde Designs, Builds Houses in Marin", Lois Gottlieb and builder, Marin County, California, March 21, 1953. (Ms1997-003)

Women's roles in the workforce have evolved over time, with dramatic advancements in the 20th and 21st centuries. Once largely restricted to the domestic sphere and its professional manifestations, women have won the right to participate in a wide spectrum of professions. Along the way, generations of women have fought for the right to work and emerged as barrier-breakers, boundary-pushers, and glass ceiling-smashers.

Items in this part of the exhibit explore these changing roles of women in the workforce: as pioneers in careers once closed to them, as creators of new professions and areas of scholarship, as authors and poets, and more informally as memoirists, diarists, and artists.