Diane C. Vecchio. Merchants, Midwives, and Laboring Women: Italian Migrants in Urban America

In Merchants, Midwives, and Laboring Women: Italian Migrantsin Urban America, Diane C. Vecchio takes on "inherent assumptionsabout Italian culture and male control of women as a paradigmfor understanding Italian women's work and wage-earning experiences"(p.2). Instead, she offers a portrait of working women who areagents in the economic fortunes of their families and the culturalpractices of their communities, making decisions about theiremployment based on local economic conditions and a varietyof additional variables: gender segmentation of the workforce,geographical