Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress

Saturday, November 7, 2009 - 1:00pm - 3:00pm

Join author and photographer, Candacy A. Taylor, as she reads excerpts from and discusses her critically acclaimed book, Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress.

Waitressing is one of the most common jobs for a woman to have and like most women’s work, it is often dismissed, stigmatized, or simply ignored. Come celebrate America’s hardest working women who have been waitressing in diners throughout the US. Counter Culture combines interview quotes, cultural criticism, documentary photography and oral histories to analyze an overlooked group of working women who have brought meaning and culture to the American roadside dining experience. Taylor is a photographer, writer and former waitress who drove 26,000 miles documenting career waitresses aged 50 and older who have been dishing out everything from eggs to insults for up to 60 years. [Read More]

Following the discussion will be a book signing.

“A wonderful read.”
    - The Wall St. Journal

“Candacy Taylor is writing about women, labor and power in a way that I have never seen before.”   
    - Frances Benson, Senior Editor.  Cornell University Press

About  Taylor

Candacy A. Taylor is  an award-winning photographer, writer and visual artist with a BA in Painting and Drawing and a Master’s degree in Visual Criticism. For almost 10 years she has produced multimedia ethnography and oral history projects that challenge common stereotypes of women and class. Her work has been featured in the New Yorker, BUST, USA Today, AARP, Pop Matters, and the Wall St. Journal.