Jenny Carson

Dr. Jenny Carson studies 20th-century American women’s labour history, focusing on the history of service work and women’s organizing in the United States. Her recently published book with the University of Illinois Press, A Matter of Moral Justice: Black Women Laundry Workers and the Fight for Justice (2021) https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p085895 (external link) , examines African American and radical women’s organizing in the laundry industry in the 20th century. Her work has appeared in numerous American and Canadian journals including: Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society, and Labor Studies Journal. Her 2010 article “‘Taking on Corporate Bullies’: Cintas, Laundry Workers, and Organizing in the 1930s and 21st Century,” published in Labor Studies Journal, won that journal’s Best Article of the Year Prize. Dr. Carson participated in the five-year SSHRC-funded Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario project, which investigated how low-waged workers and their allies have responded collectively to the growth of precarious employment in the 21st century. In 2010, Dr. Carson won the Dean’s Teaching Award for excellence in teaching. She also is a member of the graduate faculty.