The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home Read Free

explored the inner lives of two-job families in the faith that taking a very close look now can help these young women find solutions for the future that go far beyond an infant box and luck.

Acknowledgments
    I owe thanks in many directions. First of all, thanks to the National Institutes of Mental Health for generous funding of this research and to Elliot Liebow of the Center for the Study of Metropolitan Problems for administrative support. Many thanks to Troy Duster, chair of the Institute for the Study of Social Change, and longtime friend, for offering me an office, a file cabinet, and an atmosphere of warm support. My warm thanks to the research team that helped me conduct the research: Amanda Hamilton for help with preliminary interviews; Elaine Kaplan for interviewing and coding; Lynett Uttal for help with coding and statistical analysis; Basil Browne for help in distributing over 400 questionnaires to employees of a large Bay Area company; Brian Phillips for his excellent typing, and his encouragement even when the drafts seemed endless (“This one again? But I liked the last draft.”); Virginia Malcolm and Joanna Wool and Pat Frost for their interest in the project as well as their careful transcriptions; and thanks for additional pages of perceptive commentary from Pat Frost. For help in library research, thanks to Wes Ford and Grace Benveniste. For historical references, thanks to Susan Thistle. To my research assistant and collaborator, Anne Machung, my enormous thanks and a hug. Anne conducted nearly half of the interviews, did all that it took to keep the interviews confidential, did the lion’s share of some very complex coding, and put parts of our data on computer. She administered the project and helped acontinual stream of out-of-town scholars, curious students, and volunteers that knocked on the door of our office at the Institute for the Study of Social Change. I have fond memories of those Thursday afternoon discussion sessions with Anne Machung, Elaine Kaplan, Lynett Uttal, Wes Ford, and Junko Kuninobi, a visiting scholar from Japan. Although I did all of the on-the-scene observations and writing, the initial research has all our hearts in it. Only when the project came to a close and I sat down to write and think alone did the comradely “we” become the “I” with which I write.
    For helpful readings of early, off-the-mark drafts, and for loving me as deeply as they have, I am ever grateful to my parents, Ruth and Francis Russell. For their good advice, thanks to Todd Gitlin, Mike Rogin, Lillian Rubin, and Ann Swidler. For rescuing me in my hour of need, my loving thanks to Orville Schell and Tom Engelhardt. Thanks also to Gene Tanke, whose support and help at an earlier stage means a great deal. And to Nan Graham of Viking Penguin, whose faith in me, editorial guidance, and emotional beauty mean more than I can say. Thanks also to Beena Kamlani, who saw this book through production with grace and competence.
    I would like to thank the graduate students who attended my seminar in the Sociology of Gender in the spring of 1986, on whom I first tried out the idea that there is a “his” and “hers” of industrialization.
    I also want to thank the couples in this study. Although they were busy, they generously allowed me into their homes and into their lives in the faith that this research would help couples in similar situations to understand more about themselves. To protect their identities, I have transposed episodes and changed identifying characteristics. Some people may not see themselves exactly as I did, but I hope they find a mirror here that is faithful to important aspects of their experience as pioneers on a new family frontier.
    Thanks to Ayi Kwei Armah, who had faith and combed outthe knots with loving patience. Thanks also to Eileen O’Neill for her warm, loving care of Gabriel and David.
    Thanks to my husband, Adam, whose idea it was to write this book. One weekend afternoon