ABSTRACT
June, 1948: Rosalie Pedalino, seventeen-year-old high school graduate, has just completed her first full week in her first job at the Prudential Insurance Company in Newark, New Jersey. Friday at 5:00 pm, the clerks pick up their paychecks and dash for the elevators. In the crush, Rosalie is pushed firmly into one, and the door closes. Seconds after someone pushes the button for “Lobby,” there is a sudden jolt, a red emergency light appears; the elevator stops, and then suddenly begins to move again, slowly. Someone shouts, “Stop the elevator!” But no amount of pressing buttons stops its steady descent. Someone else shouts, “Were all going to die!” Rosalies instinctive, immediate, and banal thought is, “Im not going to get to spend my first paycheck.” The elevator glides down seventeen floors, finally coming to rest in the basement. Relief is followed by restlessness and mild panic. “Call for help 62on the emergency phone!” “Dont talk—you’ll use up all the oxygen!” In a few minutes a building engineer succeeds in prying open the doors and everyone is free! Welcome, Rosalie, to the world of women workers, circa 1950.
