Black Women Imagining and Realizing Liberated Futures

ABSTRACT

In the summer of 1881, a group of Black women formed The Washing Society of Atlanta by deploying extraorganizational technical communication to collectively bargain for better working conditions and wages. In this article, we illuminate the ways that Black women operated in a world dominated by an established order of racial hierarchy. We argue that the Washerwomen manifested a particular form of Black technical communication rooted in agency and advocacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Black TPC
• Black Women in TPC
• Social justice/ethics
• History of technical communication/historical technical communication
• Black Technical Communication

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jessica Edwards

Jessica Edwards writing teacher, editor, and advocate for inclusive practices, is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Delaware. She’s interested in helping scholars heighten their historical, political, and racial consciousness through writing. Her work has appeared in IEEE Transactions in Professional Communication, Technical Communication (2022), Teachers College Record (2022), Computers and Composition Online (2013) as well as the edited collections like Key Theoretical Frameworks for Teaching Technical Communication in the 21st Century (2018). She has co-edited projects like the first-year composition reader, Black in America: A Broadview Topics Reader, published by Broadview Press in 2018, and Speaking Up, Speaking Out: Lived Experiences of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty in Writing Studies (2020). Dr. Edwards currently serves on the editorial board for Technical Communication Quarterly.

Josie Walwema

Josie Walwema is a recipient of The Nell Ann Pickett Award for best article in the Association for Teachers of Technical Writing journal, Technical Communication Quarterly. Her research on the impact of technical and professional communication in the lived lives of individuals seeks to position TPC as humanistic, user-driven, socially motivated, and inclusive. Publications have appeared in the field of technical and professional writing’s most well-regarded journals including IEEE Transactions in Professional Communication, Technical Communication, Technical Communication Quarterly, and Journal of Writing and Technical Communication. Dr. Walwema recently co-edited a special issue in IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication on user-generated content; Proceedings of SIGDOC conference, 2020; and Journal of Business and Technical Communication on 21st century ethics in Technical Communication (in progress). Concurrent with starting her position at the university of washington, dr. Walwema as of september 2020 is associate editor of ieee transactions on professional communication.