Women of Bethlehem Steel - Connie Fuller

Annotation Connie Fuller was born and raised in central Missouri and began working for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation as a secretary in the local sales office in St. Louis when she was nineteen. Fuller’s describes her twenty-four year career at Bethlehem Steel, explores her experiences as a woman in a corporate, male-dominated environment, and examines her struggles and successes as a working parent. Highlights of Fuller’s interview include segments in which she recounts her introduction to and work in the emerging field of Participative Management in the 1980s and others in which she discusses how she managed child care while working full time and frequently traveling for work. Fuller explores the intersection of gender and gender-roles, family, motherhood, and career throughout her interview. At the end of the interview, Fuller provides insight into why she was interested in telling her story. She reflects on the importance of women sharing stories about their work and lives and her comments reveal the successes of her generation as well as the barriers that still exist for women today. An oral history interview is an act of memory and hence both highly selective and highly subjective. While it accurately reflects what a narrator remembers (or chooses to tell) of his or her experience and viewpoints, it may not accurately represent what actually transpired or what another person may have experienced. As such users should subject interviews to the same degree of critical scrutiny they would any other historical source. This interview is part of a series of interviews conducted by Lehigh University and the Steelworkers’ Archives and supported by the Lehigh University Mellon Digital Humanities Initiative and the South Side Initiative.