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Hallie Flanagan and the federal theater project: a critical undoing of management history

Kristin S. Williams (Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada)
Albert J. Mills (Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada and Department of Business, University of Eastern Finland, Finland)

Journal of Management History

ISSN: 1751-1348

Article publication date: 11 June 2018

Issue publication date: 5 July 2018

436

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to accomplish two things: to build on current research which interrogates the role of management history in the neglect of women leaders and labor programs and to draw attention to Hallie Flanagan and the Federal Theater Project and their lost contributions to management and organizational studies.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper adopts a feminist poststructural lens fused with critical discourse analysis to capture the role of discourses in concealing a more fragmented view of history.

Findings

The findings are openly discursive and aim to disrupt current knowledge and thinking in the practice of making history. The paper calls for an undoing of history and an examination of the powerful forces, which result in a gendered and limited understanding of the past.

Originality/value

The objective of this paper is to help scholarship continue to transform management and organizational studies and management history and to raise the profile of remarkable leaders, like Flanagan and similarly remarkable programs like the Federal Theater Project. Flanagan managed arguably the most ambitious and novel labor program under the New Deal, which resulted in an average of 10,000 workers in the arts being employed over four years, in a project which engaged audiences of over 30,000,000 Americans.

Keywords

Citation

Williams, K.S. and Mills, A.J. (2018), "Hallie Flanagan and the federal theater project: a critical undoing of management history", Journal of Management History, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 282-299. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMH-11-2017-0059

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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