I selected to review Gladys Peterson’s oral history interview of Evelyn Swant preserved at the University of Montana’s Mansfield Library. Gladys Peterson was an elementary school teacher and public historian, with a resume including many oral histories now preserved by the University of Montana as well as a historic book of the greater Bonner area for the Bonner Milltown History Center & Museum.[1] Peterson interviewed Swant on February 11, 1986, about Swant’s work experience as a Montanan librarian in the mid-1900’s working in the Missoula area. The purpose of Peterson’s interviews of Swant – and two other women – was to gauge “general attitudes about women entering the workforce and how those attitudes evolved throughout the 20th century,” especially in Montana. This selection was personal. I chose this collection because I remember listening to my late grandmother lament about the discrimination she faced in the workforce due to her sex during the 1970’s in Cincinnati, Ohio. She worked public-facing-and-serving jobs at the Cleveland Museum of Art as well as Deloitte and Tusch. Therefore, I naturally gravitated to the oral history interview of the librarian, Swant.
Swant covers her responsibilities as a Montanan librarian in the Missoula area, her pay, and how her job compared to the positions of her friends as well as associates in other fields. However, Peterson was clear with her purpose – to uncover examples of workplace discrimination based on sex in the form of terminations based on marriage status. Peterson begins the interview by placing the narrator, Swant, in the time period and jogging her memory. Peterson asks Swant “Maybe we can go back into your memory and talk first of all about the 20’s. You were in college in the late 20’s, is that correct?[2] Once Peterson situates Swant in the intended time period, she focuses Swant’s recollection on her friends. “What I would ask you is when you were at the University [of Montana], did you find that the girls were intending to work when they got out of college?”[3] Swant answers positively about their intent to work, and Peterson asks about Swant’s experience as a librarian after college in 1931 before launching her first attempt at her objective. Regarding Swant’s co-workers, Peterson asks if Swant remembered “that those who entered the job market stayed in the job market after they married?”[4] Swant recalled they didn’t and failed to reinforce Peterson’s subsequent inquiry regarding if this was due to “the general feeling about women, even college graduates at the time, that they worked until they got married.”[5] Deflected, but not defeated, Peterson continues. Peterson switches tactics by expanding the scope of her inquiry, asking if Swant recalls a “feeling against women [generally] working in Missoula” during the 1930s.[6] Again, Swant does not provide any evidence of this, and Peterson further expands the scope of her inquiry. Peterson asks Swant if Swant recalled “Women looking for jobs who couldn’t find them?” and when that inquiry failed, asked Swant if she noticed “any difference in the trend of women’s employment in Missoula?”[7] Picking up on Swant’s rejection about a “demand for women employees at the time,” Peterson proposes to Swant a possible cause for this lack of demand – that they would’ve occupied traditionally male jobs. Swant deflates that theory by citing single women traveling to California in search of employment and recalling female workers in the plant at the White Pine Sash and Door Company after World War II, which piqued Peterson’s interest. In her penultimate effort, Peterson jumps to the 1950s and asks Swant about her recollection of a contemporary trend toward increased female employment. Peterson’s question begins with a historical statement. “[F]rom what I’ve been able to figure out, there were women who had been working and they liked it. […] they wanted to stay in the workforce. Do you remember that there seemed to be more Missoula women working in the ’50s and from then on? Did the picture seem to be changing?”[8] Swant equivocates, tentatively agreeing before qualifying her answer by expressing a lack of full knowledge regarding the situation as a whole. In a last ditch effort, Peterson reduces the scale of her questioning to Swant’s workplace before the library, at the phone company. This strategy yields some success. “I don’t think there was any discrimination there at all,” Peterson states, to which Swant agrees.[9]
Peterson is clearly using oral history to “uncover a history of a previously neglected struggle within the ranks of organized labor itself,” in the words of Rick Halpern, to excavate workforce discrimination based on sex in the first half of the 20th century.[10] She nurtures a friendly environment with the narrator, and does not probe too much into Swant’s privacy. However, Peterson hinders progress toward her own objective with her line of questioning. It’s evident Swant feels uncomfortable commenting on nebulous trends outside her vocational field and town. For example, when Peterson proposes a theory based on her own experience that the phone company probably wouldn’t have hired married women, Swant agrees.[11] Peterson begins the interview well with grounding Swant in the time period and priming Swant’s memory, but fails to effectively change her inquiry strategy. When Peterson enters the narrative, she allows Swant – in the words of Alessandro Portelli – “to enter the tale with [her] autonomous discourse.”[12] Clearly, Peterson’s strategy of proving workplace discrimination based on sex by evidencing terminations due to marriage status was unfruitful. Peterson should have quickly seen this and diverted to asking about other manifestations of workplace discrimination such as pay differences or even workplace harassment.
[1] “Preserving History Today.” Bonner Milltown History Center and Museum h100. Accessed September 15, 2025. https://www.bonnermilltownhistory.org/preserving-history-today.
[2]Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 1.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 2.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 3.
[7] Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 4.
[8] Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 6.
[9] Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 8.
[10] Halpern, Rick. “Oral History and Labor History: A Historiographic Assessment after Twenty-Five Years.” The Journal of American History 85, no. 2 (1998), 596.
[11] Evelyn Swant, interview by Gladys Peterson, February 11, 1986, interview 158-001b, transcript, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 8.
[12]Portelli, Alessandro. “What Makes Oral History Different.” In The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History, State University of New York Press, 1991, 57.