Angel Kwolek-Folland

Women in the Service Industries: National Perspectives

The purpose of this special issue is to explore the relationship of gender in several national contexts to the service industriesbusinesses that provide benefit to others or produce items or infrastructure that support others. Several questions have guided our overall purpose. What do we learn about business history generally, and the service sector specifically, by taking gender into account? Is what we learn the same in different national contexts? If not, why not? We hope that the answers suggested in the essays will stimulate dialogue on both national case studies and comparative themes and will illuminate transnational patterns and perspectives in the history of women, gender, and business.

Gender, the Service Sector, and U.S. Business History

Despite the importance of service-sector activities, both to women and to the U.S. economy, services have not figured prominently in business history. A consideration of the usefulness of this subject to business history is followed by a case study of household services in the nineteenth century, showing their social and economic value and the ways in which they exemplified the integral relations between womens work and business.

Pathways to Success for Women Scientists in Higher Education in the US

A continuing problem regarding gender equity in higher education in the United States is attracting and retaining women in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. For example, only 20% of the science and engineering faculty at four-year colleges and universities are women.1 Within certain disciplines such as mathematics and physics, the numbers are dramatically smaller.