Von Bakanic College of Charleston Who’s Telling this Story? The Impact of Reporter’s Gender on Newspaper Accounts of the Charleston Hospital Workers’ Strike Von Bakanic College of Charleston

The Charleston Hospital Workers’ Strike of 1969 The Charleston hospital worker’s strike of 1969 was the last major civil rights campaign of the Civil Rights Era that was backed by Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The strike began with the firing of 12 women nursing assistants on March 19, 1969. The strike began at the Medical College of South Carolina, but quickly spread to the Charleston County Hospital. The strike lasted over 100 days and brought together civil rights organizations and unions in a coordinated movement.

Women Hospital Workers’ Strike At both hospitals staff positions were categorized into professional (e.g. RNs, MDs, administrators and administrative staff) and non- professional positions (e.g., practical nurse, nurses aids, food workers and janitorial staff). Professional staff positions were almost entirely filled by white people. Non-professional staff positions were almost entirely by black women. Approximately 450 women at the two hospitals participated in a walkout. This is a story about women in which women’s voices are ironically absent.

Women’s work Working in the strike kitchen was essential to the success of the movement, but went largely unnoticed.

Duration The Medical College of South Carolina Strike began on March 19, 1969 and ended on June 27, 1969. The County Hospital Strike began on March 29, 1969 and lasted until July 19, 1969. The combined length of time to settle both strikes was 123 days.

The strikers were nearly all women and women led the union locals The strikers were nearly all women and women led the union locals. However, women were seldom the spokespersons quoted in the press. This is a story about women in which women’s voices are ironically absent. In addition to documenting the lack of women mentioned or quoted in the newspaper accounts, this paper analyzes the impact of the reporter’s gender on the frequency of women mentioned in the text compared to men.

Data and Content Analysis The paper reports a content analysis of 636 articles about the strike published in six newspapers: The Charleston Post, The News & Courier, The State, The Record, The Washington Post The New York Times. The Charleston Post and The News & Courier were local daily papers. The State and The Record were published in the S.C. capitol and had a statewide circulation. Both the New York Times and The Washington Post had national readership.

Methodology Content Analysis of Newspaper Accounts All articles pertaining to the hospital strike published in 1969 were retrieved from the newspaper archives. A list of coding categories was compiled based on historical accounts of the strike. The coding categories were expanded by coding a selection of articles published at intervals over the course of the strike. Coding instructions were written and several coders were given a random selection of articles to code. The resulting coded cases were compared. Based on this comparison the code and instructions were refined. The process was repeated until consensus among coders was reached. Inter-coder reliability tests were done until consensus on coding the variables was established.

Results Local 380 60.2 State 158 25.0 National 93 14.7 Total 631 100.0 There were a total of 631 articles published in the six newspaper. Results Frequency Percent Local 380 60.2 State 158 25.0 National 93 14.7 Total 631 100.0

Only 51. 4% of the articles had a byline (n=292). Of those 24 Only 51.4% of the articles had a byline (n=292). Of those 24.4% authors were female (n=71) and 75.6% were male (n=221). A cross-tabulation of those articles with a gender indicated by a byline produced a significant association (Chi Sq. = 11.074, df = 2, sig.=.004) Clearly the local paper published more articles written by women and the national papers the least. Female Male Total local 60 143 203 state 9 47 56 national 2 32 33 total 71 221 292

Who was written about? Four each article the total number of men and women named were counted. A total of 334 women (mean per article = .5870) and 2,562 men Mean per article = (4.5026) were named in the 631 articles. The role of the person named was also coded. There were three major roles: civil rights leader, union representative and local participant.

Civil Rights Leaders Named Women men

Union Representatives Named Women men

Local Leaders Named Women Men

Total Women and Men Named

Correlations with Total Women Named Variable Pearson’s r significance Total men named .336 .000** Total Organizations .192 Total Churches .100 .017** Total Civil Rights Leaders .280 Total Union Leaders .279 Total Local Leaders .341 Total Politicians .064 .127 Total Police Agencies .062 .138 Total Arrests .056 .182 Estimated Gathering size .068 .106 When more women are named, more men, organizations, churches, civil rights, local and union leaders are named. There is no significant effect on politi

Do women authors mention women more?   F Sig. t df Total women 8.264 .004 -2.964 89.347 Civil rights women .028 .867 -.155 567 .877 Union Women 44.624 .000 -3.291 86.801 .001 Local Women 47.689 -4.358 Women authors mentioned more total women, more local women and more union women, but not more civil rights women.

Do women authors name fewer men?   F Sig. t Df Total men 1.842 .175 -3.59 92.443 .001 Civil Rights men .139 .710 1.345 567 .179 Union Men 11.549 -2.592 90.265 .011 Local men 10.118 .002 -2.221 93.906 .029 The same pattern emerges for number of men named by women authors. Women named more men than male authors, The also named more union men and local men. However, they did not name significantly more civil rights men.

Summary of Results - Men were much more likely to be named than women, and there were a greater range of men named compared to women. The differences in numbers of women and men named were greatest for Civil Rights Leaders and Union Leaders. The cumulative effect measured by Total Men Named and Total Women Named indicated that more than half of the articles named one or more men compared to only 22% of articles that named one or more women. The more organizations, civil rights, union, and local leaders mentioned the greater the number of women named. The number of politicians, police agencies, arrests and size of gatherings were not significantly related to the number of women named. However, the number of men was significantly correlated to both politicians (r=.539, sig.=.000) and police agencies (r=.208, sig.=.000).

Women authors mentioned women more often in every role except civil rights leaders. Women also mentioned more men in their article compared with articles not written by women. The same pattern held for total men named, union and local men. Only the number of civil rights men was the same despite the gender of the author. Summary continued

Conclusions Despite the fact that the Charleston Hospital Workers’ strikers were almost exclusively women, as were the members of the Local 1199B, women’s role as participants, union leaders, and civil rights leaders were largely ignored by the press. About a quarter of the articles with bylines were written by women authors. The local papers had more bylines for women than the state or national papers. When women authored an article it mentioned more people over all. They also mentioned women more often especially those in local and union roles. The only category with no significant differences was civil rights roles. Both men and women authors named about the same number of civil rights leaders.