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Ladies Aid as Labor HistoryWorking-Class Formation in the Mahjar

Ladies Aid as Labor HistoryWorking-Class Formation in the Mahjar In the Arabic-speaking mahjar (diaspora), the plight of the working poor was the focus of women’s philanthropy. Scholarship on welfare relief in the interwar Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian diaspora currently situates it within a gendered politics of benevolence. This article reconsiders that frame and argues for a class-centered reassessment of “ladies aid” politics exploring the intersections of women’s relief with proletarian mutual aid strategies. Founded in 1917, the Syrian Ladies Aid Society (SLAS) of Boston provided food, shelter, education, and employment to Syrian workers. SLAS volunteers understood their efforts as mitigating the precarities imposed on Syrian workers by the global capitalist labor system. Theirs was both a women’s organization and a proletarian movement led by Syrian women. Drawing from SLAS records and the Syrian American press, the article centers Syrian American women within processes of working-class formation and concludes that labor history of the interwar mahjar requires focus on spaces of social reproduction beyond the factory floor. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Middle East Women's Studies Duke University Press

Ladies Aid as Labor HistoryWorking-Class Formation in the Mahjar

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Copyright
Copyright © 2021 by the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies
ISSN
1552-5864
eISSN
1558-9579
DOI
10.1215/15525864-9306818
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In the Arabic-speaking mahjar (diaspora), the plight of the working poor was the focus of women’s philanthropy. Scholarship on welfare relief in the interwar Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian diaspora currently situates it within a gendered politics of benevolence. This article reconsiders that frame and argues for a class-centered reassessment of “ladies aid” politics exploring the intersections of women’s relief with proletarian mutual aid strategies. Founded in 1917, the Syrian Ladies Aid Society (SLAS) of Boston provided food, shelter, education, and employment to Syrian workers. SLAS volunteers understood their efforts as mitigating the precarities imposed on Syrian workers by the global capitalist labor system. Theirs was both a women’s organization and a proletarian movement led by Syrian women. Drawing from SLAS records and the Syrian American press, the article centers Syrian American women within processes of working-class formation and concludes that labor history of the interwar mahjar requires focus on spaces of social reproduction beyond the factory floor.

Journal

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies – Duke University Press

Published: Nov 1, 2021

References

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    Albrecht, Charlotte Karem
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    Balloffet, Lily Pearl
  • The Reconfiguration of Gender Relations in Syrian American Feminist Discourse in the Diasporic Conditions of the Late Nineteenth Century
    Cadinot, Dominique Burkholder, Jeffrey
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    Camfield, David
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    Deutsch, Sarah
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    Gualtieri, Sarah M. A.
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    Halaby, Raouf J. Hooglund, Eric J.
  • Tifl Yabki
    al-Hilu, Amira Jamal Faylun
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    Jabbra, Nancy W.
  • Chinatown/South Cove Walk
    Kaufman, Polly Welts Gibran, Jean McDowell, Sylvia Smoyer, Mary Howland
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    Livingstone, D. W. Luxton, Meg. Livingstone, D. W. Mangan, J. Marshall
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    Rufaʾil, Yaʿcub
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    Saylor, Elizabeth Claire
  • Good Works, Good Times: The Syrian Ladies’ Aid Society of Boston, 1917–1932
    Shakir, Evelyn Hooglund, Eric J.
  • Hal Tuhtaqar al-Fatat al-ʿAmila
    Tannous, Victoria
  • Tifl Yabki
    Tannous, Victoria
  • An Archive of Difference: Syrian Women, the Peddling Economy, and US Social Welfare, 1880–1935
    Albrecht, Charlotte Karem
  • From the Pampa to the Mashriq: Arab-Argentine Philanthropy Networks
    Balloffet, Lily Pearl
  • The Reconfiguration of Gender Relations in Syrian American Feminist Discourse in the Diasporic Conditions of the Late Nineteenth Century
    Cadinot, Dominique Burkholder, Jeffrey
  • Re-orienting Class Analysis: Working Classes as Historical Formations
    Camfield, David
  • Learning to Talk More Like a Man: Boston Women’s Class-Bridging Organizations, 1870–1940
    Deutsch, Sarah
  • Gendering the Chain Migration Thesis: Women and Syrian Transatlantic Migration, 1878–1924
    Gualtieri, Sarah M. A.
  • Dr. Michael Shadid and the Debate over Identity in The Syrian World
    Halaby, Raouf J. Hooglund, Eric J.
  • Tifl Yabki
    al-Hilu, Amira Jamal Faylun
  • Household and Family among Lebanese Immigrants in Nova Scotia: Continuity, Change, and Adaptation
    Jabbra, Nancy W.
  • Chinatown/South Cove Walk
    Kaufman, Polly Welts Gibran, Jean McDowell, Sylvia Smoyer, Mary Howland
  • Gender Consciousness at Work: Modification of the Male Breadwinner Norm among Steelworkers and Their Spouses
    Livingstone, D. W. Luxton, Meg. Livingstone, D. W. Mangan, J. Marshall
  • Crime Boards Tell How Boy Gangs Rise in New York Slums
  • Shot by Police in Chase: Prisoner Accused of Wounding Man in Fight in Brooklyn
  • Aliens Subject to Exclusion of Deportation on Economic Grounds
  • Nazarat: al-Talaq
    Rufaʾil, Yaʿcub
  • Subversive Sisterhood: Gender, Hybridity, and Transnationalism in ʿAfifa Karam’s Fatima al-Badawiyya (Fatima the Bedouin, 1909)
    Saylor, Elizabeth Claire
  • Good Works, Good Times: The Syrian Ladies’ Aid Society of Boston, 1917–1932
    Shakir, Evelyn Hooglund, Eric J.
  • Hal Tuhtaqar al-Fatat al-ʿAmila
    Tannous, Victoria
  • Tifl Yabki
    Tannous, Victoria