In March, The New York Times named alumna and English instructor Brittany Bronson to its slate of opinion writers. Bronson, '14 MFA, writes about the intersection of the working and professional classes. In "Your Waitress, Your Professor," she wrote about waiting on a student's family in a Strip restaurant: "My perhaps na?ve hope is that when I tell students I'm not only an academic, but a 'survival' jobholder, I'll make a dent in the artificial, inaccurate division society places between blue-collar work and 'intelligent' work."
Another piece explored the role of diversity in a city's livability ranking: "If livability means transforming the places where people already live into places where more wealthy people want to, then I hope it's not what Paradise strives for."
She begins "Can You Be a Waitress and a Feminist?" with "This week I will be sexually harassed on the job, and like many women in the Las Vegas service industry, I will count my tips at the end of my shift and decide that it is worth it."
Bronson is at work on a book of short fiction. She plans to pursue her doctorate with the hopes of landing a full-time position in academia.
Changing the Game: Women at Work in Las Vegas 1940 - 1990
University of Nevada Press, 2014
In Changing the Game, Joanne Goodwin, professor of history and director of the Women's Research Institute of Nevada, looks at the lives of real women as they worked in the hotel, gaming, and entertainment industries in Las Vegas from the days before the entry of the United States into World War II, though the post-war years, and through years of both recession and a booming economy. She uses the stories of those who worked a variety of jobs, including dancer, casino owner, housekeeper, and labor organizer, to dispel some of the myths surrounding women in the workforce during that half century.
Reno, Las Vegas, and the Strip: A Tale of Three Cities
University of Nevada Press, 2014
UNLV historian Eugene Moehring once again delves into the history of Las Vegas in his latest book, Reno, Las Vegas, and the Strip, but this time concentrates on the different trajectories Nevada's two largest cities have followed since World War II. He also brings into the mix what he proposes is a virtual third major metropolitan area, the famous Las Vegas Strip, located in the unincorporated county outside the city limits of Las Vegas. It is the Strip, he maintains, that played a major role in the growth of Las Vegas as a worldwide gaming mecca, even as Reno, which once had been a top gaming destination for Americans, began to lose ground and started searching for other industries on which to rely.
