cities. In all there are monthly business meetings, the business
run by the girls, with perhaps a speaker to follow, and sometimes
a program of entertainment. Lectures on week evenings, classes and
amusements are provided as far as workers and funds permit. The first
important work among newly arrived women immigrants in the Middle West
was done by the Chicago League, and this laid the groundwork for the
present Immigrants' Protective League. Headquarters are a center for
organizing, open all the time to receive word of struggling unions,
helping out in difficulties, counseling the impulsive, and encouraging
the timid. When a group of workers see for themselves the need of
organization, a body of experienced women standing ready to mother a
new little union, the hospitable room standing open, literally night
and day, can afford the most powerful aid in extending organization
among timid girls. If courage and daring are needed in this work,
courage to stand by the weak, daring to go out and picket in freezing
weather with unfriendly policemen around, patience is if possible more
essential in the organizer's make-up. It often takes months of
gentle persistence before the girls, be they human-hair-workers or
cracker-packers, or domestic workers or stenographers, see how greatly
it is to their own interest to join or to form a labor organization.
Many locals formed with so much thought and after so much pains, drop
to pieces after a few months or a year or two. That is a universal
experience in the labor movement everywhere. But it does not therefore
follow that nothing has been gained. Even a group so loosely held
together that it melts away after the first impulse of indignation
has died out is often successful in procuring shorter hours or better
wages or improved conditions for the trade or shops of their city.
Besides each individual girl has had a little bit of education in what
coöperation means, and what collective bargaining can do. The League
itself is a reminder, too, that all working-girls have many interests
in common, whatever their trade.
But besides aiding in the forming of new locals, the Women's Trade
Union League can be a force strengthening the unions already
established. Each of the leagues has an organization committee, whose
meetings are attended by delegates from the different women's trades.
These begin mostly as experience meetings, but end generally in either
massing the effort of all on one particular union's struggle, or
in planning legislative action by which all women workers can be
benefited.
In New York and Boston, Chicago and St. Louis and Kansas City the
local leagues have in every case had a marked effect upon industrial
legislation for women. They have been prime movers in the campaigns
for better fire protection in the factories in both New York and
Chicago, and for the limitation of hours of working-women in the
states of New York, Massachusetts, Illinois and Missouri, and for
minimum-wage legislation in Massachusetts and Illinois.
In every one of these states the Women's Trade Union League has first
of all provided an opportunity for the organized women of different
trades to come together and decide upon a common policy; next, to
coöperate with other bodies, such as the State Federation of Labor,
and the city centrals, the Consumers' League, the American Association
for Labor Legislation, and the women's clubs, in support of such
humane legislation. Much of the actual lobbying necessary has been
done by the girls themselves, and they have exercised a power out
of all proportion to their numbers or the tiny treasury at their
disposal. No arguments of sociologists were half so convincing to
legislators or so enlightening to the public as those of the girls who
had themselves been through the mill. "Every hour I carry my trays I
walk a mile," said Elizabeth Maloney of the Waitresses' Union. "Don't
you think that eight hours a day is enough for any girl to walk?"
When we turn to the National League itself, if there is less to record
of actual achievement, there are possibilities untold. Never before
have all the work of this country had an organization, open to all,
with which to express themselves on a national scale.
Early in 1905 the Executive Board of the League appointed a committee
with Mary McDowell chairman to secure the coöperation of all
organizations interested in the welfare of woman in demanding a
federal investigation and report upon the conditions of working-women
and girls in all the principal industrial centers. Miss McDowell
called to her aid all the forces of organized labor, the General
Federation of Women's Clubs and other women's associations, the social
settlements and church workers. So strengthened and supported, the
committee then went to Washington, and consulted with President
Roosevelt and the then Commissioner of Labor, Dr. Charles P. Neill.
Miss McDowell, more than any other one person, was responsible for the
passing in 1907 of the measure which authorized and the appropriation
which made possible the investigation which during the next four
years the Department of Commerce and Labor made. The result of that
investigation is contained in the nineteen volumes of the report.
The first gatherings of any size at which League members met
and conferred together were the interstate conferences, held
simultaneously in Boston, New York and Chicago, the first in the
summer of 1907 and the second in 1908. The former was the first
interstate conference of women unionists ever held in the United
States, and it was therefore a most notable event. Especially was it
interesting because of the number of women delegates who came from
other states, and from quite distant points, Boston drawing them from
the New England states, New York from its own extensive industrial
territory, and Chicago from the Middle West. Inspired by what she
heard in Chicago, Hannah Hennessy went back to found the St. Louis
Women's Trade Union League. It was at the first interstate conference,
also, that a committee was appointed to wait upon the American
Federation of Labor Executive Board, during the Norfolk Convention
in November, 1907. The Illinois State Committee of the Women's Trade
Union League, whose fine legislative work helped to secure the passage
of the present ten-hour law for women, also grew out of the discussion
which came up in the Chicago conference.
The lines on which the League is developing can be observed through
the work done and reported upon at the biennial conventions of which
five have been held. The first, at Norfolk, Virginia, in 1907, was
an informal gathering of but seven delegates, women who had been
attending the convention of the American Federation of Labor of that
year. Subsequent conventions have taken place every two years since
then. These have been held in Chicago, Boston and St. Louis and New
York respectively. On each occasion about seventy delegates have
reported. They are certainly a picked lot of girls. They are trained,
trained not in fancy debate, but in practical discussion. They have
met with employers in trade conferences where an error in statement or
a hasty word might mean a cut in wages or an increase in hours for
two years to come. They have met with their fellow-workers in union
meetings, where, if a girl aspires to lead her sisters or brothers,
she has to show both readiness of wit and good-humored patience in
differing from the others.
These women are growing too, as all must grow who live on life's
firing line, and shrink not from meeting the very hardest problems of
today. The working-woman, in her daily struggle comes up against every
one of them, and not one can be evaded.
Industrial legislation, judicial decisions, the right to organize, the
power to vote, are to the awakened working-woman not just academic
questions, but something that affects her wages, her hours. They may
mean enough to eat, time to rest, and beyond these home happiness and
social freedom.
In two directions especially can the growing importance of the women's
trade-union movement be observed: on the one hand in the incessant
appeals, coming from all over the continent, to the National League,
for advice and assistance in organizing women into the local unions
of their trade; on the other in the degree in which it is gradually
coming to be recognized by public men, by politicians, by business
men, as well as by students and thinkers, that it is to organized
women they must turn, whenever they want an authoritative expression
as to the working-women's needs and desires.
Two sets of resolutions discussed and passed by the fourth biennial
convention of the National Women's Trade Union League, held in 1913,
were afterwards published broadcast over the country, and have been
of marked educational value. The one pleaded for the speedy
enfranchisement of women for these reasons: because the most costly
production and the most valuable asset of any nation is its output of
men and women; because the industrial conditions under which more than
six million girls and women are forced to work is an individual and
social menace; and because working-women as an unenfranchised class
are continually used to lower the standards of men. The League
in particular protested against the ill-judged activities of the
anti-suffrage women, "a group of women of leisure, who by accident of
birth have led sheltered and protected lives, and who never through
experience have had to face the misery that low wages and long hours
produce."
This stirring, appeal made a profound impression on suffragists and
anti-suffragists alike, in the labor world, and amid the general
public. It was of course hotly resented by that small group of women
of privilege, who think they know better than working-women what are
the needs of working-women. Its deep significance lay in that it was
a voice from the voiceless millions. It gave many pause to think and
catch, as they had never caught before, the vital meaning underlying
the demand for the vote.
The other series of resolutions expressed no less forcefully the
women's consciousness of the intimate connection between education and
labor, and pressed home the fact that organized laboring-women are
watchful of the work being done in our public schools, and are anxious
that it should be brought and kept up to the level of present-day
needs. As is mentioned elsewhere, these resolutions laid special
stress upon the necessity of making all courses of industrial training
coeducational, of including in them the history of the evolution of
industry, and the philosophy of collective bargaining, and of insuring
that all boys and girls, before they leave school to go to work,
have a knowledge of the state and federal laws that exist for their
protection. These resolutions were sent to 1,075 boards of education
in the United States. Replies have been received from twenty-six
boards in fifteen states. Of these fourteen already have vocational
training in their schools, two are planning such training, and six
referred the resolutions to committees. Of those having training in
the schools, thirteen have courses open to both boys and girls, and
one has courses for girls exclusively, but is planning to open a
school for boys.
The National League for four years published its own magazine, _Life
and Labor_, with a double function; on the one hand as the organ of
the League activities, and the expression of the members' views; on
the other as a running diary of what was happening in the world of
working-women, for the information of students and of all interested
in sociological matters.
In the chapter on The Woman Organizer allusion is made to the efforts
of the League to train women as trade-union organizers. Miss Louisa
Mittelstadt, of Kansas City, and Miss Myrtle Whitehead, of Baltimore,
belonging to different branches of the Brewery Workers, came to
Chicago to be trained in office and field work, and are now making
good use of their experience. One was sent by the central labor body,
and the other by the local league. Miss Fannie Colin was a third
pupil, a member of the International Ladies' Garment Workers, from New
York City.
A word in conclusion regarding some of the typical leaders who are
largely responsible for the policy of the League, and are to be
credited in no small measure with its successes.
After Mrs. Raymond Robins, the national president, already spoken of,
and standing beside her as a national figure comes Agnes Nestor, of
Irish descent, and a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, upon whose
slight shoulders rest alike burdens and honors. Both she bears
calmly. She is a glove-worker, and the only woman president of an
international union. She is both a member of the National Executive
Board of the Women's Trade Union League, and the president of the
Chicago League, and she has served as one of the two women members of
the Federal Commission on Industrial Education. She has done fine work
as a leader in her own city of Chicago, but neither Chicago, nor even
Illinois, can claim her when the nation calls.
Melinda Scott is English by birth, belongs to New York, and has
achieved remarkable results in her own union of the hat-trimmers. It
is not during the exciting stage of a perhaps spectacular strike that
Miss Scott shines; it is during the weary time when only patience and
endurance can hold the girls together, and afterwards, when, whether
the strike is lost or won, enthusiasm is apt to flag, and when
disputes bid fair to break down the hardly won agreement.
Initiated at sixteen into the Knights of Labor, Leonora O'Reilly took
the vows that she has ever since kept in the spirit and in the letter.
After many years spent as a garment-worker, she became a teacher in
the Manhattan Trade School for Girls. She was one of the charter
members of the New York Women's Trade Union League and has always been
one of its most effective speakers. Leonora and her Celtic idealism
have made many converts.
Russia in America is embodied in Rose Schneidermann. She is the living
representative of the gifts that the Slavic races, and especially
the Russian Jew, have contributed to American life. Coming here in
childhood, her life has been spent in New York.
As an example of her achievements, for four years she worked
untiringly among the white-goods-workers of New York, until they
were strong enough to call a general strike, a strike which was so
successful that they won a great part of their demands, and ever since
have held their union together, seven thousand strong. Penetrated with
the profound sadness of her people, and passionately alive to the
workers' wrongs, Rose Schneidermann can stir immense audiences, and
move them to tears as readily as to indignation. For her all the hope
of the world's future is embodied in two movements, trade unionism on
the one hand and socialism on the other.
[Illustration: IN A BASEMENT SWEATSHOP
Women picking rags collected from households. These rags have neither
been cleaned nor disinfected and give off dust at every handling.]
[Illustration: GIRL GAS BLOWERS. KANSAS CITY]
The New York League owes much of its success to Mary Dreier, the
sister of Mrs. Raymond Robins. She was its president for several
years, and by her perseverance and devotion, did much to build up the
organization in its early days.
The rest of the League leaders must be summed up even more briefly.
Mary Anderson, a member of the Boot and Shoe Workers' International
Board, is of Scandinavian origin, and has all the steadfastness of the
Swedes. Another very excellent organizer and much-loved trade unionist
is Emma Steghagen, also of the Boot and Shoe Workers, and for seven
years secretary of the Chicago League. She may be called the League
veteran, for her association with trade unionism began with the
Knights of Labor. Others are Mary McEnerney, Mary Haney, Hilda
Svenson.
Elizabeth Maloney, she of the snapping eyes and fervent heart,
marshals her waitresses through strike after strike against grinding
employers, or she eloquently pleads their cause, whether in the state
legislature, or with her own International, at the convention of
the Hotel and Restaurant Employés, if the men show themselves a bit
forgetful, as they sometimes do, of the girls' interest.
Nelle Quick, bindery woman, has been transferred from her trade-union
activities in St. Louis to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the state
of Missouri.
From among clerical workers came into the League women who have
left their mark, Helen Marot and Alice Bean, of New York, and Mabel
Gillespie, of Boston, while Stella Franklin, the Australian, for long
held the reins of the national office in Chicago.
Gertrude Barnum, who graduated into trade unionism from settlement
work, and Josephine Casey, of the Elevated Railroad Clerks, are two
who were long actively associated with the Woman's Trade Union League,
but of late years both have been organizers under the International of
the Ladies' Garment Workers.
Among the allies, the non-wage-earners, are Mary Dreier, president of
the New York League, who was also the only woman member of the New
York State Factory Investigating Commission; Mrs. Glendower Evans,
notable for her service in advancing legislation for the minimum wage;
Mary McDowell, of the University of Chicago Settlement, mother of
the stockyards folk, beloved of the Poles and the Bohemians and the
Ruthenians, who cross the ocean to settle on the desolate banks of
Bubbly Creek. Mrs. D.W. Knefler, of St. Louis, did pioneering work for
girlish trade unionism in that conservative city.
Miss Gillespie, the Secretary of the Boston Women's Trade Union
League, has been for years its main standby. Working in coöperation
with the young president, Miss Julia O'Connor, of the Telephone
Operators, her influence in the labor movement is an important factor
in the Massachusetts situation. She is a member of the State Minimum
Wage Commission.
Young as is the League, some most heroic members have already passed
into the unseen. Adelaide Samuels was a teacher in the public schools
who, in the day of very small things for the New York League, acted as
treasurer and chairman of the label committee. In her scant leisure
she worked patiently towards the end that girls in the poorest trades
should win for themselves the power of making the collective bargain.
She died before she could have seen any tangible results from her
efforts.
Hannah Hennessy, who carried away from the first interstate conference
in Chicago a vision in her heart of a Women's Trade Union League in
every large city, a few years later laid down her life as the result
of the hardships endured while picketing on behalf of the Marx and
Haas strikers. Her youth had slipped away, and her strength had been
sapped by weary years as an ill-paid garment-worker, so that exposure
to cold and wet found her power of resistance gone, and a few weeks
later she was no more.
At the other end of the social scale, but thrilled with the same
unselfish desire to better the conditions of the girl toilers, stood
Carola Woerishofer, the rich college girl, who, once she was committed
to the cause, never spared herself, picketing today, giving bonds
tomorrow for the latest prisoner of the strike, spending a whole hot
summer in a laundry, that she might know first-hand what the toiler
pays that we may wear clean clothes. And so on, until the last
sad scene of all, when on duty as inspector of the New York State
Immigration Bureau, her car capsized, and Carola Woerishofer's brief,
strenuous service to humanity was ended.
From yet another group came Frances Squire Potter, formerly professor
of English Literature in the University of Minnesota, who a few
years ago became profoundly impressed with the unfair and oppressive
conditions under which working-women live and toil. Thus was she led
far away from academic fields, first into suffrage work, and later
into the National Women's Trade Union League. Until her health gave
way, about a year before her death, she acted as official lecturer for
the League. Through her unique gifts as a speaker, and her beautiful
personality, she interpreted the cause of the working-woman to many
thousands of hearers. She was also departmental editor of _Life and
Labor_, the League's magazine.
Great have been the vicissitudes of the labor movement among men, but
for many years now, the tendency towards national cohesion has been
growing. This tendency has been greatly strengthened by the rapid
development, and at the same time, the cheapening of the means of
transport and communication between distant regions of the country.
In the advantages arising from this general growth of the labor
movement, both in its local activities and on its national side, women
workers have indeed shared. This is true, both on account of the
direct benefits accruing to them through joining mixed organizations,
or being aided by men to form separate organizations of their own,
and also through the vast assistance rendered by organized labor in
obtaining protective legislation for the most utterly helpless and
exploited toilers, for example, the child-labor laws which state after
state has placed upon the statute book, sanitary regulations, and laws
for the safeguarding of machinery dangerous to workers.
Still, compared with the extensive movement among men, in which the
women have been more or less a side issue, feminine trade unionism has
been but fitful in its manifestations, and far indeed from keeping
pace with the rate at which women have poured into the industrial
field. The youth of a large number of the girl workers, and the fact
that, as they grow up, so many of them pass out of the wage-earning
occupations, marriage, and the expectation of marriage, the main
obstacles that stand in the way today in getting women to organize and
to hold their unions together, furnish also the underlying causes of
the want of continuity of the trade-union movement among women since
it first began in the United States in the early part of the last
century. The too frequent change in the personnel of the members, and
therefore in the composition of the union itself, means an absence
of the permanence of spirit which is an essential condition for the
handing on in unbroken succession of standards of loyalty and esprit
de corps.
It is continuity that has rendered possible all human progress,
through the passing on from all of us to our successors, of each
small acquirement, of each elevation of standard. Where, but for
such continuity would be the college spirit, that descends upon and
baptizes the newcomer as he enters the college gates? Where, but for
continuity would be the constantly rising standards of morality and
social responsibility? Where, but for continuity would be national
life and all that makes patriotism worthy? Where, indeed, would be
humanity itself?
The average man is a wage-earner, and as such a fit subject for
organization. If extensive groups of men remain unorganized, the
responsibility lies partly on the trade unions, and is partly
conditioned by our social and political environment. But either way, a
man is a trade unionist or he is not. The line is clear cut, and trade
unions therefore admit no one not actually a worker in their own
trade.
But it is not so with women. Outside the wage-earning groups there
is the great bulk of married women, and a still considerable, though
ever-lessening number of single women, who, although productive
laborers, are yet, owing to the primitive and antiquated status of
home industry, not acknowledged as such in the labor market. Not
being remunerated in money, they are not considered as wage-earners.
(Witness the census report, which, in omitting those performing unpaid
domestic duties from the statistics of gainful occupations, does but
reflect the tragic fact that woman's home work has no money value and
confirms the popular impression that "mother doesn't work.")
Yet another force to be reckoned with in estimating the difficulties
which stand in the way of unionizing women is the widespread hostility
to trade unionism, as expressed through newspaper and magazine
articles, and through public speakers, both religious and secular. The
average girl, even more than the average man, is sensitive to public
opinion, as expressed through such accepted channels of authority. The
standards of public opinion have been her safeguard in the past, and
she still looks to them for guidance, not realizing how often such
commonly accepted views are misinterpretations of the problems she
herself has to face today. In the middle of the last century, a period
that was most critical for men's unions in England, a number of
leaders of public thought, men of influence and standing in the
community, such as Charles Kingsley, Frederick Denison Maurice and
others, came to the help of the men by maintaining their right to
organize. In the United States, during the corresponding stage of
extreme unpopularity, Horace Greeley, Charles A. Dana and Wendell
Phillips extended similar support to workingmen. We today are apt
to forget that women's unions with us are just now in the very same
immature stage of development, as men's unions passed through half a
century ago. The labor men of that day had their position immensely
strengthened by just such help afforded from outside their immediate
circle. It is therefore not strange that women's unions, at their
present stage of growth, should be in need of just such help.