Yirminci Yüzyılın Başlarında New York’ta Çalışan Kadın İşçiler Sorunu ve Dorothy Richardson’ın Romanı The Long Day (1905)

20. yüzyılın başlarını da içine alan Progresif Dönemin Amerika’sında, kadın işçiler iş hayatında kadın-erkek eşitsizliğinin yaratmış olduğu ataerkil düzene boyun eğmek durumunda kalmış, erkeklere oranla çok daha zorlu koşullar altında çalışmak zorunda bırakılmıştır. Bu dönemde New York Herald gazetesi muhabirlerinden Dorothy Richardson büyük şehirde çalışan genç kadın sorununa ışık tutmak amacıyla kılık değiştirerek araştırmacı gazeteciliğe yönelmiş ve yaşadıklarını kurgusal unsurlarla harmanlayıp The Long Day: The Story of a New York Working Girl (1905) romanında anlatmıştır. Richardson yazdığı bu romanda meslek eğitiminin önemine değinirken aynı zamanda okuyucularına kadın işçilere yönelik koruyucu yasaların gerekliliğini hatırlatır. Kadın kahramanın hayatını özendirerek anlatan yazar, çalışmanın ve emeğin değerini vurgulayarak, Amerikan rüyasına erişmenin yollarını okuyucuyla paylaşır.

The Working Girl Problem in Twentieth-Century New York and Dorothy Richardson’s The Long Day (1905)

At the turn of the twentieth century, wage-earning women inprogressive America had to succumb to a vicious, precarious systemin which they were disadvantaged when compared to their malecounterparts. In an attempt to illuminate on the working girl problemin big cities, Dorothy Richardson, a reporter from the New YorkHerald, took up undercover investigative journalism, publishing herexperiences in The Long Day: The Story of a New York Working Girl(1905). In her novel, Richardson stipulates trades-training and remindsher readers of the necessity of protective legislation. Introducing thelife of her heroine as desirable, she emphasizes the value of a strenuouslife, showing her readers how to climb up the social ladder towards theAmerican dream.

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