The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s by Michael Goldfield (review)

Labor: Studies in Working-Class History, Volume 19, Issue 4 © 2022 by Labor and Working-Class History Association Goldin crafts a progress narrative in which each cohort sought to overcome earlier constraints. Technological determinism pervades her analysis, with opportunities expanded from changes in household appliances, commodification of housework, and enhanced reproductive technologies. Finishing this study during the COVID19 pandemic, Goldin asks that we “make certain that they [women] do not sacrifice their jobs because of care issues and that they do not sacrifice their caregiving for their jobs” (222). She passes “the baton” to men: “to lean out at work, support their male colleagues who are on parental leave, vote for public policies that subsidize childcare, and get their firms to change their greedy ways” (18, 235). Such reforms may increase equity for the betteroff, but are unlikely to upend larger inequalities.