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Many waitresses had always assented to sexual display and flirtation as an integral aspect of their work. Their acceptance of the sexual character of their work was rooted in their distinctive mores, but it also derived from their situation as service workers in an occupation in which their livelih…

[...] Because women's work was often de-valued and its skills rendered invisible, waitresses had more trouble raising the societal estimation of their worth than did their male co-workers.38 Nevertheless, through unionization, waitresses gained many of the privileges reserved for “skilled” workers.…

Calls for eliminating tips and demanding a compensatory raise in cash wages issued forth frequently from culinary union spokespersons, especially during the Progressive Era.29 Food servers themselves, however, were divided over the issue, with the ranks of those interested in reforming the system t…

Men outside the culinary industry, however, saw female servers in a different light. Men from many different well-organized trades—longshoremen, logging, and mining—for example, frequented local cafes and restaurants, knew the waitresses personally, and saw the unionization of the eating establishm…

Yet as the sit-down fever spread through Detroit, Local 705 jumped in to organize women as well as men. In the fall and winter of 1936 and 1937, after nearly five years of bitter unemployment punctuated by marches, demonstrations, and clashes with police, Detroit's workplaces blazed up under the sp…