Research & Writing

I study the history and politics of work, unions, labour relations, and women’s activism.

My current research projects include a study of attempts to establish unions for bank workers in Canada and an analysis of the different politics, strategies, and experiences of women who have attempted to advance gender equality through labour organizing in Canada. In addition, I am working on co-authored projects on labour relations in the Canadian airline industry and child care sector.

Selected Publications

Journal articles

• “From Career Girl to Sexy Stewardess: Popular Culture and Women’s Work in the Canadian and American Airline Industries,” with Joan Sangster. Women: A Cultural Review 30, no. 2 (Summer 2019): 141–161.

• “The First Canadian Bank Strike: Labour Relations and White-Collar Union Organizing during the Second World War.” Canadian Historical Review 99, no. 4 (Winter 2018): 623–646.

• “The Labor Relations of Love: Workers, Child Care, and the State in 1970s Vancouver, British Columbia,” with Lisa Pasolli. Labor: Studies in Working-Class History 14, no. 4 (December 2017): 39–60.

• “‘Thigh in the Sky’: Canadian Pacific Dresses Its Female Flight Attendants,” with Joan Sangster. Labor: Studies in Working-Class History 14, no. 1 (March 2017): 39–63.

• “Beards and Bloomers: Flight Attendants, Grievances and Embodied Labour in the Canadian Airline Industry, 1960s–1980s,” with Joan Sangster. Gender, Work and Organization 23, no. 2 (March 2016): 183–199.

• “An ‘Entirely Different’ Kind of Union: The Service, Office, and Retail Workers’ Union of Canada (SORWUC), 1972–1986.” Labour/Le Travail 73 (Spring 2014): 23–65.

Edited book

• Dissenting Traditions: Essays on Bryan D. Palmer, History, and Marxism, edited by Sean Carleton, Ted McCoy, and Julia Smith. Edmonton, AB: AU Press, 2021.

Book chapters

• “Discipline as Deterrence: Labour Relations and the Silencing of Feminist Labour Activists,” with Joan Sangster. In Essays in the History of Canadian Law Volume XII: New Essays on Women’s History, edited by Lori Chambers and Joan Sangster, 244–274. Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History and the University of Toronto Press, 2023.

• “Old Positions/New Directions: Strategies for Rebuilding Canadian Working-Class History,” with Sean Carleton. In Dissenting Traditions: Essays on Bryan D. Palmer, History, and Marxism, edited by Sean Carleton, Ted McCoy, and Julia Smith, 5–12. Edmonton, AB: AU Press, 2021.

• “Challenging Work: Feminist Scholarship on Women, Gender, and Work in Canadian History,” with Lisa Pasolli. In Reading Canadian Women’s and Gender History, eds. Nancy Janovicek and Carmen Nielson, 278–297. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019.

Book reviews

• Review of Working Women in Canada: An Intersectional Approach, edited by Leslie Nichols. Labor: Studies in Working-Class History 20, no. 1 (February 2023): 132–133.

• Review of Radical Ambition: The New Left in Toronto, by Peter Graham and Ian McKay. Canadian Historical Review 101, no. 4 (December 2020): 661–662.

• Review of Just Watch Us: RCMP Surveillance of the Women’s Liberation Movement in Cold War Canada, by Christabelle Sethna and Steve Hewitt. Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600–2000 23, no. 2 (September 2019).

• Review of Women’s Emancipation and Civil Society Organisations: Challenging or Maintaining the Status Quo?, edited by Christina Schwabenland, Chris Lange, Jenny Onyx, and Sachiko Nakagawa. Gender, Work and Organization 26, no. 7 (July 2019): 1056–1058.

• Review of The Assault on Labor: The 1986 TWA Strike and the Decline of Workers’ Rights in America, by Sandra L. Albrecht. Labor: Studies in Working-Class History 16, no. 2 (May 2019): 133–135.

• Review of Towards a Global History of Domestic and Caregiving Workers, edited by Dirk Hoerder, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, and Silke Neunsinger. Labour/Le Travail 80 (Fall 2017): 361–363.

• Review of Solitudes of the Workplace: Women in Universities, edited by Elvi Whittaker. American Review of Canadian Studies 47, no. 3 (October 2017): 330–332.

• “Steelworkers in Struggle.” Review of The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America, by Ahmed White. Monthly Review 68, no. 10 (March 2017): 59–62.

• Review of Revolutionizing Retail: Workers, Political Action, and Social Change, by Kendra Coulter. WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society 18, no. 1 (March 2015): 143–146.

• “Workers (and Students) of Canada, Unite! Reviewing Nora Loreto’s From Demonized to Organized: Building the New Union Movement.” Arthur 48, no. 18 (10 February 2014): 6.

• Review of Rose Henderson: A Woman for the People, by Peter Campbell. Labour/Le Travail 70 (Fall 2012): 277–279.

• Review of Capitalism: A Graphic Guide, by Dan Cryan, Sharron Shatil, and Piero; and Marxism: A Graphic Guide, by Rupert Woodfin and Oscar Zarate. Marx and Philosophy Review of Books (1 November 2011).

Other writing

• “Feminist Newsletters and the History of Women’s Labour Activism in Manitoba,” with Hannah Guenther-Wexler. Prairie History, no. 6 (Fall 2021): 70–73.

• “Women #MakeAnImpact in the 1919 Calgary Strike.” Women’s Centre of Calgary (9 October 2019).

• “Revisiting the Workers’ Revolt in Winnipeg,” with Sean Carleton. Canadian Dimension 53, no. 1 (Summer 2019): 23.

• “The Workers’ Revolt in Calgary,” with Sean Carleton and Kirk Niergarth. ActiveHistory.ca (19 June 2019).

• “#MeToo: Fighting sexism through labour activism,” with Joan Sangster. Canadian Dimension 52, no. 2 (Summer 2018): 16 and 47.

• “Canadian travelers should welcome unionization at WestJet,” with Joan Sangster. CBC News, August 20, 2018.

• “#MeToo and lessons from the unfriendly skies,” with Joan Sangster. Toronto Star, April 3, 2018.

• “The best way to protect against unscrupulous bank tactics? Empower workers.” CBC News, March 29, 2017.

• “Celebrating Graphic Herstory,” with the Graphic History Collective. ActiveHistory.ca (22 March 2016).

• “Back to Work: Revitalizing Labour and Working-Class History in Canada,” with Christo Aivalis, Greg Kealey, and Jeremy Milloy.” ActiveHistory.ca (21 September 2015).

• “Here We Come A-Picketing! Christmas Carols, Class Conflict, and the Eaton’s Strike, 1984–1985,” with Sean Carleton. ActiveHistory.ca (8 December 2014).

• “Getting Graphic with the Past: Comics and Radical History,” with Sean Carleton. Bulletin of the Canadian Historical Association 40, no. 1 (2014): 36–37.