National Women's Trade Union League of America

[redqueen]

Anyone heard of them? Many of the 20th century's best known reformers were involved with the group (Jane Addams, Mary McDowell, Lillian Wald, and Eleanor Roosevelt to name a few).

This group shouldn't be forgotten.




The Seal of National Women's Trade Union League, from the Proceedings of the Third Biennial Convention, 1911.

http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/nwtul.html

The National Women's Trade Union League of America (NWTUL) was founded in Boston in 1903 as a coalition of working-class women, professional reformers, and women from wealthy and prominent families. Its purpose was to "assist in the organization of women wage workers into trade unions and thereby to help them secure conditions necessary for healthful and efficient work and to obtain a just reward for such work."

The NWTUL viewed women workers primarily in their capacity as oppressed workers, but also recognized that all women, regardless of class, were united by the "bonds of womanhood." Thus upper-class women joined as the allies of working-class women, donating money, serving as spokespeople to the press, and arranging for legal representation. The wealthy women members of the NWTUL were also willing to dirty their hands, and they participated in picket lines and sometimes got arrested during protests. In the process, the women of the NWTUL forged a new working-class feminism.

At a time when organized labor was devoted to a "family wage" concept—that is, a wage for men at which they could support an entire family without the contribution of a working wife—and when union leaders were worried that increased participation of women in labor markets would drive down men's wages, traditional unions were largely unwilling to allow women into their ranks. When women did form unions and strike, the NWTUL often provided support where other unions held back.

The NWTUL supported the women garment industry workers in New York and Chicago when they struck in 1909 and 1910. The Uprising of the 20,000 marked a turning point for the NWTUL, when the organization gained credibility after lending important support to the strikers. In the teens, the NWTUL organized working-class women to participate in the suffrage movement. Rose Schneiderman, who became an officer of the NWTUL, was an important figure of the Jewish left, and a key organizer in the New York Women's Suffrage Party and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. The organization dissolved in 1950.

An informative pamphlet shows the group's goals:

http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/PrimarySourcesDetailsPage/PrimarySourcesDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=PrimarySources&prodId=UHIC&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ2161000235&mode=view&userGroupName=k12_histrc&jsid=2e7ce42a466ed3807444e365d444cbe4

[ismnotwasm]

1. I love this stuff

Thank you. The journey is as important as the destination. Plus it gives a sense of how many have fought for justice, and for how long

[redqueen]

2. Me too...

I was shocked I'd never heard of them considering the role they played in some key events in American History. I need to look into the UK based group that preceded them. Kinda reminds me of the growing feminist movement in the UK now, and seeing how feminists here seem to be following in their footsteps and are finding their voice on many of these largely ignored issues again, finally.

[ismnotwasm]

3. Wiki has a good article on the "New York shirtwaist strike of 1909"

The New York shirtwaist strike of 1909, also known as the Uprising of the 20,000, was a labor strike primarily involving Jewish women working in New York shirtwaist factories. Led by Clara Lemlich and supported by the National Women's Trade Union League of America (NWTUL), the strike began in November 1909. In February 1910, the NWTUL settled with the factory owners, gaining improved wages, working conditions, and hours. The end of the strike was followed only a year later by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, which exposed the plight of immigrant women working in dangerous and difficult conditions.



The population of New York City was more than half immigrant in the early 1900s. These immigrants came from a wide variety of backgrounds, and crowded into immigrant neighborhoods like the Lower East Side of Manhattan Island, which at the time had one of the highest population densities in the world. Many of these immigrants, men, women, and children alike, worked for low pay in factories with terrible working conditions to help support themselves and their families. But they were also exposed to a bustling new world, and to the political and union organizers therein. Immigrant women especially often came from conservative social backgrounds which limited their interaction with men and people outside the family. But New York in the early 1900s provided the opportunity for these women to explore such social interactions, and exhibit a new level of independence.
Many of these women immigrants toiled in the garment industry, which was New York's best known industry at the time. They worked not for a single, large conglomerate but many smaller companies spread across lower Manhattan, among the largest of which were the Triangle and Leiserson shirtwaist factories. This workforce was more than 70% women, about half of whom were not yet twenty years old, and about half of whom were Jewish and a third Italian. In the production of shirtwaists in particular, the workforce was nearly all Jewish women. Some of them had belonged to labor unions in Europe before their immigration; many of the Jewish women in particular had been members of the Bund. Thus, they were no strangers to organized labor or to its tactics. Indeed, Jewish women who worked in the garment industry were among the most vocal and active supporters of women's suffrage in New York.

Garment industry workers often worked in small sweatshops, with the men doing the higher-paid work of cutting and pressing while women were paid less for assembling and finishing garments. Work weeks of 65 hours were normal, and in season they might expand to as many as 75 hours. Despite their meager wages, workers were often required to supply their own basic materials, including needles, thread, and sewing machines. Workers could be fined for being late for work or for damaging a garment they were working on. At some worksites, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, steel doors were used to lock in workers so as to prevent workers from taking breaks, and as a result women had to ask permission from supervisors to use the restroom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_shirtwaist_strike_of_1909