BIRD, Caroline 1915-

PERSONAL: Born April 15, 1915, in New York, NY; daughter of Hobart Stanley (a lawyer) and Ida (Brattrud) Bird; married Edward A. Menuez, June 8, 1934 (divorced, December, 1945); married John Thomas Mahoney (a writer), January 5, 1957 (died, 1981); children: (first marriage) Carol (Mrs. John Paul Barach); (second marriage) John Thomas, Jr. Education: Attended Vassar College, 1931-34; University of Toledo, B.A., 1938; University of Wisconsin—Madison, M.A., 1939. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Protestant.

ADDRESSES: Home—1600 South Eads St., Apt. 10425, Arlington, VA 22202.

CAREER: Newsweek, New York, NY, editorial researcher, 1942-43; New York Journal of Commerce, New York, NY, desk editor, 1943-44; Fortune, New York, NY, editorial researcher, 1944-46; Dudley-Anderson-Yutzy (public relations firm), New York, NY, staff writer, 1947-68; freelance writer, 1968—. Russell Sage College, Froman Distinguished Professor, 1972-73; Case Western Reserve University, Mather Professor, 1977.

MEMBER: American Society of Journalists and Authors, Society of Magazine Writers, American Sociological Association, Women in Communications, American Sociological Association, Women's Equity Action League, National Organization for Women.

AWARDS, HONORS: Selection as one of the best books of 1966, American Library Association, for The Invisible Scar: The Great Depression and What It Did to American Life, from Then until Now; L.H.D., Keene State University, 1988.

WRITINGS:

The Invisible Scar: The Great Depression and What It Did to American Life, from Then until Now, David McKay (New York, NY), 1966.

(With Sara Welles Briller) Born Female: The High Cost of Keeping Women Down, David McKay (New York, NY), 1968, revised edition, 1970.

The Crowding Syndrome, David McKay (New York, NY), 1972.

Women: Opportunity for Management, Presidents Association (New York, NY), 1973.

Everything a Woman Needs to Know to Get Paid What She's Worth, David McKay (New York, NY), 1973, revised edition, Bantam (New York, NY), 1981.

The Case against College, David McKay (New York, NY), 1975.

Enterprising Women: Their Contribution to the American Economy, 1776-1976, W. W. Norton (New York, NY), 1976.

What Women Want, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1978.

The Two-Paycheck Marriage: How Women at Work Are Changing Life in America, Rawson, Wade (New York, NY), 1979.

The Good Years: Your Life in the Twenty-first Century, W. W. Norton (New York, NY), 1983.

Second Careers: New Ways to Work after Fifty, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1992.

Lives of Our Own: Secrets of Salty Old Women, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995.

Chief writer, Spirit of Houston, 1978. Contributor to periodicals.

SIDELIGHTS: Feminist writer Caroline Bird has focused her attention on women's roles in the business world. Her first book on the subject, Born Female: The High Cost of Keeping Women Down, is a detailed exposé of job discrimination against women. Anne Bristein of Book World wrote that Bird "is committed and convincing, proving point by point, patiently and painstakingly, with footnotes and heavy documentation, in category after category . . . that women are indeed kept down on the job, and that such discrimination is not inherently ridiculous but immoral." Bird "not only writes down all the things that women think but rarely say," Gloria Steinem wrote in the New York Times Book Review, "she documents them. . . . The last chapter, 'The Case for Equality,' is a storehouse of strong opinions and suggested reforms. . . . Probably it should be sent to all the Presidential candidates just to shake up their thinking."

In Everything a Woman Needs to Know to Get Paid What She's Worth, Bird takes as given that many women are discriminated against in the workplace. She then offers tested methods women can use to improve their positions. "The recommendations," Cynthia Harrison of Library Journal commented, "are for those who want to best (rather than change) the system." June Goodwin of Christian Science Monitor found that, like Born Female, Everything a Woman Needs to Know is a "highly serious, well-researched study of women's job plight. Using the old Socratic question-and-answer format, she teaches women how to get jobs, better jobs, better pay for their jobs, and how to fight the subtle and not so subtle pressures which would keep them down."

In The Two-Paycheck Marriage: How Women at Work Are Changing Life in America, Bird writes: "Enough women are now earning enough money to change the terms of both family and work." To assess these changes, Bird "surveys a broad spectrum of working couples at all income levels," A. S. Kowler of Library Journal explained. Suzanne Fields of the Washington Post Book World wrote that Bird "collates the sociological, psychological, and economic histories of the two-paycheck families; cool assessments of the child-care crisis, changing sex-and-power alignments, and child-bearing timetables; experiments of 'lifestyle pioneers' who are trying to balance demands of family and career, and a far-out feminist vision of the future." Writing in the Journal of Marriage and Family, M. M. Poloma concluded that the book is "a very readable introduction to the topic for the beginner and, at the same time, provides some creative insight into alternatives that have not yet been empirically explored by the social science researcher."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Bird, Caroline, The Two-Paycheck Marriage: How

Women at Work Are Changing Life in America, Rawson, Wade (New York, NY), 1979.

PERIODICALS

Affılia Journal of Women and Social Work, summer, 1996, Marsel A. Heisel, review of Lives of Our Own: Secrets of Salty Old Women, p. 243.

Booklist, November 15, 1991, review of Second Careers: New Ways to Work after Fifty, p. 587.

Book World, September 22, 1968, Anne Bristein, review of Born Female: The High Cost of Keeping Women Down.

Charlotte Observer, January 28, 1974.

Christian Science Monitor, August 22, 1973, June Goodwin, review of Everything a Woman Needs to Know to Get Paid What She's Worth.

Detroit News, March 26, 1971.

Gramercy Herald, August 20, 1971. Journal of Career Planning and Employment, winter, 1993, Camille DeBell, review of Second Careers, p. 15.

Journal of Marriage and Family, February, 1980, M. M. Poloma, review of The Two-Paycheck Marriage: How Women at Work Are Changing Life in America.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 1995, review of Lives of Our Own, p. 280.

Library Journal, July, 1973, Cynthia Harrison, review of Everything a Woman Needs to Know to Get Paid What She's Worth; April 15, 1979, A. S. Kowler, review of The Two-Paycheck Marriage; December, 1991, Linda Malone, review of Second Careers, p. 162; May 1, 1995, Kathleen L. Atwood, review of Lives of Our Own, p. 119.

Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1975.

Modern Maturity, February-March, 1992, Karen Westerbeg Reyes, review of Second Careers, p. 88.

New York Post, March 4, 1966; August 31, 1968.

New York Times Book Review, August 11, 1968, Gloria Steinem, review of Born Female.

Publishers Weekly, December 13, 1991, review of Second Careers, p. 50; March 20, 1995, review of Lives of Our Own, p. 51.

Rapport, January, 1995, review of Lives of Our Own, p. 46.

Saturday Review, November 2, 1968.

Today's Secretary, March, 1974.

Washington Post, July 15, 1983.

Washington Post Book World, April 29, 1979, Suzanne Fields, review of The Two-Paycheck Marriage.

Women's Review of Books, October, 1995, Karen Propp, review of Lives of Our Own, p. 27.*