Underground Woman: My Four Years as a New York City Subway Conductor (Labor And Social Change) [Hardcover]

Marian Swerdlow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 1998 | Series: Labor And Social Change

Take a wild ride through the New York City subway system with author Marian Swerdlow, one of the first women subway conductors. In the days when subway cars were canvas for graffiti murals and there were no toilets for women employees, Swerdlow trained in Manhattan's underworld of tunnels and learned how to cope with the accompanying dangers and frustrations. Her fascinating insider's account from four years on the job is laden with anecdotes that range from the funny to the painful to the absurd. From her fellow employees, she got grief and harassment, but also camaraderie and love-and a distinct subway lingo that permeates her prose. At all hours of the day and night, New Yorkers in their glorious diversity rode her subway cars. Some spat on her and assaulted her; others were supportive and cheered her on.A white woman in a mostly minority male workplace, Swerdlow helped edit a rank-and-file newsletter, "Hell on Wheels," and tried to organize for better working conditions, confronting the Kafkaesque Transit Authority bureaucracy and complacent union leadership.This book is full of the experiences that give New York City its edge-the rush hour, crime, medical emergencies, fires in subway cars, floods in subway tunnels, and confrontation of ethnic groups. The conductor is the person who hears what New Yorkers have to say about the quality of life in the Big Apple. And Swerdlow is a narrator with attitude, who has her own words for the subway system of today, including the new standards of politeness that riders are supposed to observe. It includes a glossary of over 140 subway terms. Author note: Marian Swerdlow teaches high school social studies in New York City. After working as a subway conductor, she taught sociology at the State University College at Buffalo. Swerdlow was born and grew up in the Bronx.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

1-55639-610-7 The subway conductor--the man or woman, in a tiny compartment in the train's middle car, whose head emerges when the train stops in a station--is the one who bear the brunt of harried commuters' dissatisfaction with the vagaries of New York City's transit system. (``Conductors don't like sticking their heads out,'' Swerdlow tells us, ``because they get deliberately hit by people on the platform.'') This unusual glimpse of the other side of life on the tracks reveals how things look from the conductor's point of view. In 1982, Swerdlow, then a graduate student in sociology, became one of the city's first female conductors. This personal account has both humor and drama. She faced shootings and stabbings on her train and sexual harassment from male riders, tells of track fires and signal problems and the lack of women's toilets, underground romance with a fellow conductor and his variegated past, work rules and union organizing. Reading this, straphangers will gain a little compassion for subway conductors--and maybe stop whacking them on the head. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From the Publisher

The strange world of the New York subways by one of the first women to work as a conductor

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 262 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (March 5, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566396093
• ISBN-13: 978-1566396097
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,423,865 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating but condescending view of NYC Transit life, January 9, 1999

By 

Mary Donch ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Underground Woman: My Four Years as a New York City Subway Conductor (Labor And Social Change) (Paperback)

As one of Marian Swerdlow's seniors in the NYCTA, I don't think any of us thought we were the subjects of a sociologist's eye while we were working with her. It turns out we were, and Underground Woman is the result.

Swerdlow's book brings back many memories of my former railroad and the people in it. Many of her anecdotes ring true - at times I was laughing out loud - although I was never aware of the depth of the hostility she apparently held towards senior people, motormen, and myself in particular until I read this book. (I am the "Mary Hansen" character in her book, and I find it interesting that Swerdlow chooses to perpetuate in the outside press outright untruths about myself, my career, and my activities in the Transport Workers Union.) None of us who came before her and worked to change conditions in the subway, unless they joined the New Directions movement, apparently did anything worth respecting in her view.

Many of the folk tales and outlines of the life, times, and culture of the NYC subway system are vividly captured in Underground Woman. It's a pity that because of her single-minded focus on union affairs, how they should be conducted, and how New Directions can save subway workers from themselves, that she missed so much more of what goes on outside of "official" union and management channels. The condescending attitude of many New Directions activists, especially towards those who support neither the status quo in TWU nor New Directions, turns many people off who would otherwise support them.

I give Swerdlow credit for having the sense to leave the job when she realized that working in the railroad industry was simply not the place for her. Her book is very good in capturing the rhythm and flow of life in Rapid Transit Transportation, but derails itself by portraying any non-supporters of New Directions in a clearly negative light.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, January 1, 2006

By 

Antsy (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Underground Woman: My Four Years as a New York City Subway Conductor (Labor And Social Change) (Paperback)

If you really want to understand the working conditions of those who recently struck, shutting down NYC for days, this is your book. The subway subculture is mostly invisible to the riders and this is the only book I know of that reveals it. My only objection is to some repetitiveness and disorganization, plus it would have explained a lot to have known that the authors father had worked on trains and died in an accident.