“A Strong Leadership that Does Not Show”: Ladies Auxiliaries as Women’s First Entrance Points into the Fire Department

Abstract

Women first entered East Coast fire departments through forming ladies auxiliary groups, where women provided critical support services—offering assistance at the fire, holding fundraising events for the department, and building community relationships—while maintaining conventional gender roles. Exploring auxiliary work through the lens of collaboration reveals feminist strategies for creating ethos in a highly gendered workplace; this approach for studying the complexities of women’s movement between background and foreground roles opens new avenues for considering women’s navigation of rhetorical barriers in professional spaces.

Notes

¹ I’d like to thank RR reviewer Lynée Lewis Gaillet for her suggestions and editor Elise Hurley for her support. Additional thanks to Lindal Buchanan, April Cobos, and Jenny Moore for their feedback and encouragement. I’m also grateful to Kevin Knussman of the AVFD and Mike Legeros of the RFD for sharing their respective fire department archives.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Moseley

Sarah Moseley is an Assistant Professor, General Faculty, at the University of Virginia, where she teaches writing courses. Her scholarly interests include feminist rhetorics, historiography, and workplace gendering. Her research focuses on women’s fire department participation across the twentieth century.