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Observations from the lives of African American domestic workers--back in print
Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off is an exploration of the lives of African American domestic workers in cities throughout the United States during the mid-twentieth century. With dry wit and honesty, Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor relates the testimonies of maids, cooks, child care workers, and others as they discuss their relationships with their employers and their experiences on the job. She connects this work with popular culture, presenting Aunt Jemima, Mammies, Uncle Ben, and other charged figures through the eyes of domestic workers as opposed to their employers, and remembers her own family history (her mother and grandmother were domestic workers after migrating to Philadelphia from South Carolina). Interspersed with musings and interviews are historical references, quotations, and personal anecdotes that make this account all the more intimate, heartbreaking, and relevant.Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor (1937-2016) was an American culinary anthropologist, griot, food writer, and commentator on National Public Radio. She wrote several books on African American cooking, including Vibration Cooking: or, The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl, an autobiographical cookbook and memoir.
Premilla Nadasen is professor of history at Barnard College, Columbia University, and author of Household Workers Unite, Rethinking the Welfare Rights Movement, and Welfare Warriors; as well as coauthor of Welfare in the United States.
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