In this book Christina Gringeri investigates the effects of homeworking on workers--mainly women--and their families and explores the role of the state in subsidizing the development of homeworking jobs that depend on gender as an organizing principle. She focuses on two Midwestern communities--Riverton, Wisconsin and Prairie Hills, Iowa--where more than 80 families have supplemented their incomes since 1986 as home-based contractors of small auto parts for The Middle Company, a Fortune 500 manufacturer and subcontractor of General Motors.

Gringeri looks at rural development from the...