Nonfiction | Biographies & Memoirs
Big Bosses
2020-06-30 09:13:33
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âDishy, witty and a ton of fun . . . [a] document of everyday life and work in 20th century America from a perspective that is all too rarely seenâ (Chicago Tribune). In her memoir, Big Bosses, Althea Altemus vividly recounts her life as a secretar... Read more
âDishy, witty and a ton of fun . . . [a] document of everyday life and work in 20th century America from a perspective that is all too rarely seenâ (Chicago Tribune). In her memoir, Big Bosses, Althea Altemus vividly recounts her life as a secretary for prominentâbut thinly disguisedâemployers in Chicago, Miami, and New York during the late teens and 1920s. Alongside her, we rub elbows with movie stars, artists, and high-profile businessmen, and experience lavish estate parties that routinely defied the laws of Prohibition. Beginning with her employment as a private secretary to James Deering of International Harvester, whom she describes as âprobably the worldâs oldest and wealthiest bachelor playboy,â Altemus tells us much about high society during the time, taking us inside Deeringâs glamorous Miami estate, Vizcaya, an Italianate mansion worthy of Gatsby himself. Later, we meet her other notable employers, including Samuel Insull, president of Chicago Edison; New York banker S. W. Straus; and real estate developer Fred F. French. Altemus was also a struggling single mother, a fact she had to keep secret from her employers, and she reveals the difficulties of being a working woman at the time through glimpses into womenâs apartments, their friendships, and the dangersâsexual and otherwiseâthat she and others faced. Throughout, Altemus entertains with a tart and self-aware voice that combines the knowledge of an insider with the wit and clarity of someone on the fringe. âBig Bosses stands as a real contribution to our understanding of the history of working women in Jazz Age America.â âThe Wall Street Journal âRemarkable . . . Altemus recounts the wildest indiscretions of her employers between 1918 and 1925.â âBooklist Less
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  • 9780226423760
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