Susan Porter Benson, author of Counter Cultures, the path-breaking history of department store saleswomen in America has died at the age of 61.
I've probably read Counter Cultures more times than I've read any other monograph. (Saying "book" would be a lie, since there are plenty of children's books I've read more often!) It was reading Counter Cultures for the first time in 1995 that inspired me to do an essay on the Wellington shop assistants union, that turned into an Honours research essay, that turned into part of my successful applications to graduate school in America, that turned into where I am now. Picking up that book is part of how I came to be where I am, and to do what I do. I could have got to a similar place in other ways, but we don't run through life more than once over, and my reading of that book means a lot to me.
When I finished my Honours research essay (150 odd pages, including appendices) I sent an [unsolicited] copy to Susan Porter Benson. She replied with two pages of thanks and suggestions, and an invitation to meet her if the occasion presented it.
I always hoped that our conference schedules would overlap, or that my current research would take me to Storrs, CT (has anyone ever wished that they could go to Storrs?!) but it never happened and now it never will.
It's very sad that she won't complete the projects she's working on now (family economic decisions in the inter-war era) which are still similar to my own interests, even if I've pushed off in the direction of economic, as distinct from social, history.
Posted by robe0419 at June 22, 2005 04:06 PM | TrackBackI just read Porter Benson's obit in the OAH newsletter last night--what a loss. She was incredibly influential to women's history, consumer history, and social history in general. I loved her book... While my topic concerns juvenile delinquent girls, Porter Benson's discussions on women's culture were hugely influential to me--and many others. RIP.
Posted by: lee at August 11, 2005 11:30 AM