The scarcity of labor opportunities in the early company towns is evidenced by the fact that in Astra only five women were employed during the 1920's, all of whom were employed in some capacity as domestic servants.  From 1919-1945, 35 women who were salaried employees in Astra worked  as caretakers, cooks, servant and spousal helpers.

Click on image to view larger version

  

    Augusta M., a German immigrant who came to Astra as a teenager, describes her early work as a servant and nanny for a company Doctor.  She also illustrates how women's paid work many times only reinforced the dominant "feminine" roles of society:

"[M]e vine a Astra, a la casa del Doctor Ricardi...[T]rabajé de "mucama" cuidando a los dos los niños cuando el Doctor se tenía que hacer un viaje al capital por su cosa, la señora lo acompaño, yo estaba cargo de los niños y de la casa...Yo viví con esta gente. Porque prácticamente los chicos estaban siempre conmigo. Ahí aprendí ya ser mamá, sin ser." (Interview, 1/9/2003)

"I came to Astra to work at the home of Doctor Ricardi.  I worked there as a caretaker, watching the children whenever the Doctor had to go on a trip to the capital [Buenos Aires] for something, because his wife accompanied him and I was in charge of the house and the children.  I lived with them, because the children were almost always in my care.  There I learned to be a mother, without actually being one."

 

Click on image to view larger version

                                           

  
 Early on, women in both Y.P.F. and Astra worked as maids, nannies, midwives, and tailors.  Y.P.F., always more advanced in terms of female labor, hired salaried women for such positions, including as contracted midwives for the Hospital Alvear, tailors in the workshops, and planchadoras (clothes ironers) for the medical service, while in Astra they were part of an important informal economy.  Many women in the latter were self-employed, doing piecework at home or providing meals and domestic services for male workers for a living.  The latter was especially important becuase it fulfilled a need of the oil workers while also offering women the opportunity to contribute to the household economy.  Elsa B. shares her mother's experiences doing such unofficial jobs in nascent Astra:

Click on image to view video clip

"[C]omo habían tantos paisano y solteros viejos, pobres, el sacrificio de le pedían, lavarle la ropa, darle vueltas al cuello. La camisa, mi mamá, con esa maquina si habrá dado vueltas, cuellos de camisas, y lavar ropa y planchar.  Eso era su trabajo. Afuera, lo que ella se podía, y después, de la venta de huevos, de pollo, de gallinas, eso si." 1-9-03, Astra