"Women, Work, and Family: The Female Workers of the Bunge y Born Group (1914-1965)"

The present poster proposal aims to explore the intersection between labor history and business history, based on the trajectories of women workers who were employed in the offices of the Bunge and Born group between 1914 and 1965. The conglomerate was one of the most important in Argentina during the 20th century, as it encompassed textile, financial, and real estate companies, concentrating a large workforce. Currently, the company in Argentina has been reconfigured, but its headquarters are located in the United States.
The objective of this proposal is to delve into the universe of women workers who were employees of the company. Among the specific objectives, we aim to investigate the positions they held, the most common age groups, and their marital status at the time of joining and leaving the firm. Additionally, we seek to identify the origins of these women, that is, how many of them were foreigners, how many were daughters of foreign parents, and how many were Argentine. We will then explore what happened once they were integrated into the labor market, investigating the types of tasks they performed and attempting to reconstruct their occupational trajectories, examining whether there was, or was not, mobility within the company itself.
The research primarily relies on the personal files of female workers preserved in the Bunge and Born Archive. Each file contains not only abundant information about the activities the women engaged in within the company but also traces of their family and private lives. Among the personal documentation, one can identify: a record with the personal details of each worker, salary, medical leaves, medical reports, personal letters to the executives, loan applications, bonuses granted by the company, and also job mobility within the sections and other companies in the group, among other information.