I met Kathleen Stone, author of the soon-to-be-released They Called Us Girls: Stories of Female Ambition from Suffrage to Mad Men, through Biographers International Organization (BIO the natural acronym!). In 2020, as one of the few benefits of COVID-19, a subgroup of writers interested in group biographies formed virtually. We’ve met monthly since then, zooming in from California to Ireland, New England to Arkansas.

When Kathleen joined, her book was already completed and scheduled for publication so we learned less about its “growing pains” than some of the other projects within the group. That’s why I welcomed this excuse to ask her some questions about the book and her process for creating it.

The book, released by Cynren Press on March 1, is a collective biography of seven women who aspired to professional jobs in the mid-twentieth century. They were all born before 1935.

You can read more about Kathleen and the book on her website. Meanwhile, here’s some of the inside skivvy.

Q:  How did you decide to write this particular book?

A: I began writing the book when I was about 30 years into my career as a lawyer. I was feeling reflective about how life progresses, not only for me but for others as well, and that led me to think more expansively about what else I wanted to do in life.

I had always been interested in women of my parents' generation who had what were then considered "men's" jobs. When I was young, I didn't know any woman who worked in a male-dominated profession, but a few had gone to law school with my father. I was curious about why they had taken a path that was so unconventional. Decades later, I still didn't know where that sort of ambition came from, and how a woman pursued it to success when hurdles were so much higher than they were for me. I decided to find out. From there, the book took shape.

Q: What criteria did you use to decide who to profile, and what was your process for finding the women?

A: I wanted to talk to women of my parents' generation, so age was the first criterion. All the women profiled in the book were born before 1935 and they were in their 80s and 90s when I interviewed them.

Even in the mid-20th century, many women were in the paid labor force, but often their jobs were those deemed "appropriate" for women, or they worked only until they married or had children. Some, of course, had factory jobs during World War II, à la Rosie the Riveter, but I wanted to tell a different, less common story. That meant I had to find women with careers in male-dominated professions. I also wanted to reflect a diversity of professions, as well as racial and ethnic diversity.

To start, I read books on women's history, and searched for lists of notable women in books and online. Some women on those lists said yes to my interview request, even though they didn't know me at all, which was both amazing and gratifying. Also really helpful was my personal network. When I told friends and colleagues what I was doing, they were enthusiastic, often suggesting women to interview and making personal introductions where they could. That opened some doors too.    

Q: How did you prepare beforehand and get organized with your material afterwards? Over what time period did the research take place? Did you interview them multiple times?

A: In my preparatory reading about women's history, I made a timeline of events that I thought were important for the time period I was interested in. For the interviews, I prepared a set of questions that pretty much followed a chronology. Then, before an interview, I would read what I could about the woman and incorporate that information into my set of questions.

I taped the interviews which meant I could take notes on things that wouldn't be captured in  a transcript, such as tone of voice, the occasional hesitation, even what a woman wore. Generally, I did one interview because that was what was possible. But in several instances, I had the opportunity to meet the woman again, two or three times.   

Up to this point, I was working pretty much intuitively. But organizing the mass of material was a whole other challenge. I began working with a developmental editor who suggested I chart each woman's life chronologically, including emotional highs and lows. That process got me to re-read transcripts, look for themes, and generally sift through all the material I had gathered. The final product was well over a hundred pages.

The last big organizational challenge was figuring out how to arrange the chapters. After many false starts, it eventually became clear that the interplay between personal lives and historic events suggested a chapter sequence. Ultimately, chapters fell into place in a way that illustrates how opportunities evolved in the 50 year period beginning with suffrage in 1920 through the Mad Men era that ended around 1970.  

 Q: How did you deal with gaps in their memories or the need for larger context about something they said or experienced? For example, supplementary research.

A:  Beyond the interviews, I did a lot of supplemental research. I needed to understand how a girl in 1930 or 1940 would have understood the opportunities open to her. Also, during the interviews, women talked about events that I wanted to know more about. I read about the history of Harlem for instance. Other examples are how women lost their jobs during the Great Depression, and American intelligence operations during World War II.

Sometimes a family member was available to expand on a story or provide a new perspective. I also checked facts. Occasionally there was a discrepancy, but nothing major. But keep in mind that I had chosen the women to interview. One criterion I didn't mention before is that the women, though in their 80s and 90s, had the acuity necessary for a good interview.

Q: Did the women review the chapters about themselves? If so, how did you deal with changes they may have requested?

A: No, they didn't read the chapters. Sometimes I did go back to clarify or amplify a point, but no one ever requested the opportunity to review what I was writing. Now that I think about it, there was an incredible level of trust.

Q: The title is so evocative—how did you realize that was the line to use?

 A: I'm glad you like it! It took me a while to realize that was the line to use. I tried out other possibilities but nothing felt quite right. Then, when I was re-reading the transcript of my final interview, the light bulb went on. The woman, now a federal judge, graduated from law school in 1956 and could not get a job with a law firm. Law firms were not hiring girls, she said. That captured the situation all women faced. No matter how educated, talented or ambitious they were, they were regarded as "girls."

Q: What is your conclusion about what it was like to aspire to a profession during the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s?

A:  Many women of the era were smart and ambitious, but most did not pursue the kind of careers these women did. I don't want to sound glib, but I think some kind of alchemy occurred. The ingredients included educational opportunities and parents who were supportive and inspired their daughters to work, even if the parents' work was very different from what their daughters chose to do. A number of the women were immigrants, or their parents were. That turned out to be one of the most striking conclusions, so much so that I wrote about it for Ms. Magazine.  But that's probably not surprising when you think about the reasons people emigrate and what they hope to achieve for themselves and their children.

 Q: What else would you like people to know about the message in the book?

A: These women were not thrown by negative attitudes or unfairness. They had staying power. Also, their ambition did not mean they were after fame or money. They wanted the opportunity to use the full range of their talents, which meant finding a path where that was possible., which was not easy. Often they served others in their work. In the course of writing the book, I had new insights about women's ambition, and I hope readers will too.

Again, you can check out Kathleen’s website to learn more about her, sign up for her newsletter, and, of course, purchase the book!