Wildcat Women: Narratives of Women Breaking Ground in Alaska’s Oil and Gas Industry

273 Pages·2018·6.98 MB·English

by  Carla Williams

Wildcat Women

Wildcat Women
Narratives of Women Breaking Ground in
Alaska’s Oil and Gas Industry
by Carla Williams
Commentary by Julia Feuer-Cotter
Arctic Environmental Historian
Foreword by Dermot Cole
Award-Winning Alaska Reporter, Editor, and Author
University of Alaska Press
Fairbanks, Alaska
Text © 2018 Carla Williams
Published by
University of Alaska Press
P.O. Box 756240
Fairbanks, AK 99775-6240
Cover and interior design by Paula Elmes.
Top cover image: Pipeline construction worker Linda Templeton leans
on a shovel. Alaska State Library, Historical Collections, Pipeline Impact
Photograph Collection, 1974-1977. ASL-PCA-17. (ASL-P17-8034).
Bottom cover image: Large diameter pipes called flow lines coming from a
well pad. Photo by Carla Williams.
Back cover image: Carla Williams by Mary Katzke.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Williams, Carla, 1965- author.
Title: Wildcat women: narratives of women breaking ground in Alaska’s
oil and gas industry / Carla Williams.
Description: Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2017059970 (print) | LCCN 2018014737 (ebook) | ISBN
9781602233553 (e-book) | ISBN 9781602233546 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Women—Employment—Alaska. | Sex discrimination against
women—Alaska. | Women’s rights—Alaska. | Trans-Alaska Pipeline
(Alaska)—History. | BISAC: HISTORY / Americas (North, Central, South,
West Indies). | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women’s Studies.
Classification: LCC HD6096.A4 (ebook) | LCC HD6096.A4 W535 2018
(print) | DDC 665.7/440925209798—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017059970
To my mother, Georgia, my best friend and life coach,
who passed away in 2011.
A voracious reader and wordsmith, she kept at least one book
and crossword puzzle nearby. Her favorite author, Maeve Binchy,
catapulted my mom to Ireland where love, mystery, and adventure
provided hours of entertainment. She also enjoyed thick historical
novels following generations of families through decades and even
centuries. Her love of such historical epics inspired me to write a
nonfiction one of my own, a documentary about a new generation
of women trailblazers.
My mother encouraged me to pursue my dreams and never
second-guess. In a time when women often lacked paying
professions, she worked as a legal secretary. While employed in
a full-time job, she also prepared meals, paid bills, maintained
household chores, organized holiday events and vacations, and
served a maternal role for me and my brother, Roger.
Her unconditional love, energy, drive, and attention to detail
provided the necessary inspiration to nurture my own confidence
and spirit of adventure that led me to Alaska and the creation of
Wildcat Women.
Contents
Foreword, ix
Preface, xiii
Acknowledgments, xvii
Introduction, xix
Part One:
Oil Rush: Above the Lower 48 and Below Zero
Pipe Dreams: A History of the Alaska Pipeline 3
Frozen Assets: A Women’s History of the Alaska Pipeline 11
Persistence and Perseverance 19
Part Two:
Wildcat Voices
We Can Do It! 27
Irene Bartee, 29 Onice McClain, 115
Kate Cotten, 45 Marlene McCarty, 123
Lianne Rockstad, 60 Roxie (Hollingsworth) Majeske, 135
Debora Strutz, 67 Robin Connolly, 143
Norma Carter, 83 Rosemary Carroll, 156
Donna Ford, 90 Clara King, 162
Dana Martinez Parker, 108 Samantha George, 167
Part Three:
North to the Future
The Flow Continues 173
Afterword 179
Femininity on Alaska’s North Slope 185
Glossary, 203
Endnotes, 209
Index, 213
About the Author, 231

Foreword
A
thirteen-foot-tall bronze monument near the south-
ern end of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in Valdez
includes fi ve sculpted fi gures representing the nearly sev-
enty thousand people who designed and built the project
that revolutionized Alaska in the 1970s.
One of the fi ve is a teamster, described by sculptor
Malcolm Alexander as “a woman who wanted to be a pio-
neer, to build something in possibly the last frontier of
the world.”
When the pipeline workforce peaked in 1975, approxi-
mately 1,900 women were employed on the project. Some
held offi ce jobs and worked as cooks and maids, but more
than half held what at the time were called “nontraditional
jobs” for women.
They worked as teamsters, laborers, ironworkers, sur-
veyors, technicians, operating engineers, and in other
capacities, performing an essential role in making the
pipeline a reality.
The untold story of this labor-force revolution and the
decades that followed is at the heart of this book, which
focuses on a transformative period in Alaska history.
After the discovery of the largest oil fi eld in North
America at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, a consortium of giant
oil companies decided to build a pipeline across Alaska,