No Place for a Woman

In 1970, nearly half the women in the United States had paying jobs, but most women worked for low pay. Women were waitresses, clerks, and cleaning ladies. Less than five percent of lawyers were women. About three percent of police officers were women. In the iron mines of northern Minnesota, zero percent of the steelworkers were women. But in the mid-70s, women there began taking jobs running shovels, driving trucks, and operating enormous machines in the ore processing plants. Some of the men tried to force the women miners out. Women were harassed, threatened, and even assaulted. But they needed the jobs. They wanted their rights. And they wanted to change the world for their daughters and granddaughters. So the women miners of northern Minnesota fought back, and made legal history.