PROGRESSIVE WOMEN IN SOCIOLOGY TODAY
Summer, 1998
Roslyn Bologh (more to come)
I graduated from college (Hunter College in the Bronx) at the age of
20,
three months after my wedding, and two months after my 20th birthday (I
married a month before I turned 20). I went from living with my parents
and brother to living with my husband. I lived all my life (til I married)
in the same 6 story apartment building , moving when I was in the fifth
grade from a one bedroom apartment on the second floor to a two bedroom
apartment on the same floor in what was then called the West Bronx --
distinguished from the East Bronx which was poor -- except in the North --
where it was more middle class (we would have called it upper middle class
as we considered ourselves middle class) . We did not use the term working
class -- and in fact my father owned his own business, first a seltzer,
beer and soda route (which meant lugging heavy wooden crates filled with
heavy glass and metal seltzer, beer and soda bottles), and later a
launderette -- not self service, the kind where he picked up laundry,
washed and dryed it and delivered it -- all by himself, with the help of my
mother sometimes, my cousin sometimes, and a woman who worked for him. Of
course he worked 6 days a week; I assumed all men did.