African-A1merican Women Workers and the Women's Trade Union League

"YOUR SISTEXS OF DARKER HUE": AFRICAN-A1MERICAN WOMEN WORKERS AND THE WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE

Jennifer Lynn Carson

Department of History

Subrnitted in partial fidfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Faculty of Graduate Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario March, 1998

@ Jennifer Lynn Carson 1998 National Library Bibliothèque nationale I*U ofcanada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services senices bibliographiques

395 wellingtori Street 395. nie Wellington ûüawaON KIAONQ ôtrawa ON KIA ON4 Canada CaMda

The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distriiute or sell reproduire, prêter, disbn'buer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/fïlxn, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique.

The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor subsîantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheMrise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. This thesis explores the relationship between the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) and African-American women workers. It examines both the official poiky of the National WTUL regarding the unionization of black women workers, as weli as some of its organuational campaigns involving Affican-

American workers. This anaiysis will outline the reasons why the League's rhetorical commitment to racial equality did not lead to a concerted attack on the racist practices found within the American labor movement

The second haif of this work provides a comparative analysis of the racial practices of the National WTUL, and the New York WTUL, the most active local branch of the National League. Focusing on the New York League's campaign to organue New York City's laundry workers, the majority of whom were African-

American women, this thesis will explain why the NY League was able to Iive up to the National League's espoused principies of racial equaiity. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1 would iike to express my sincere gratitude for the time, guidance and encouragement provided by my thesis advisor Margaret Kellow. Her insighthil comments and unfiagging support have made this work possible. 1 would also iike to express my deep appreciation to Jack Blocker, whose insightful comments on Afncan-American workers has greatly enhanced this project. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of Examination Abstract Acknowledgements Table of Contents List of Acronyms

1. Introduction

2. "When you can find your way clear to join hands with your sisten of darker hue": The National Women's Trade Union League and African- American Women Workers

3 . "They performed a very real fùnction": The New York Women's Trade Union League and Afiican-Amencan Wornen Workers

4. "It was like the salvation": The Organization of New York City's Laundry Workers and the New York Women's Trade Union League

Conclusion

Bibliography

Vita LIST OF ACRONYMS

ACWA Amdgamated Clothing Workers of Amenca AFL American Federation of Labor BWOHE' Black Woman Oral History Project CIO Congress of Industrial Organizations FDR Frankllli Delano Roosevelt rLGW international Ladies' Garment Workers Union ElLw international Laundry Workers' Union LOR Leonora O'Reilly MA Mary Anderson MD Mary Dreier MDR Margaret Dreier Robins NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAWSA National Amencan Woman Suffrage Association NRA National Recovery Act NUL National Urban League NwP National Woman's Party NWTUL National Women's Trade Union League NYWTUL New York Women's Trade Union League NYDL New York Department of Labor NYUL New York Urban League RS Rose Schneiderman TC'ITUW Twentieth Century Trade Union Woman USDL United States Department of Labor UTWA United Textile Workers of America WCTC Woman's Christian Temperance Union WTUL Women's Trade Union League YMCA Young Men's Christian Association YWCA Young Women's Christian Association Chapter One

Introduction

In 1903, at an Arnerican Federation of Labor Convention, Mary k~eyO'Sdlivan announced the formation of a League dedicated to the "organization of women wage earners into Trade Unions. "' Convhced that collective labor bargainhg would provide the solution to women's exploitation in the industrial labor force, a smalI group of upper-class

"ailies" and social reformers set out to improve the working conditions of their industrial sisters through the formation of the National Women's Trade Union League of America

(NWTUL).2 The League was to be modeled after the British Women's Trade Union

League, which had been in existence since 1874.' The National League established its

'In its 1905-1906 program, League leaders asserted that "The object of the Women's Trade Union League shall be to assist in the organization of women wage emers into Trade Unions and thereby to help them secure conditions necessary for healthfUI and efficient work and to obtain a just retum for such work. " OflciaZ Report of the WTUL of Arne- 1905-1906, 1, Reel 1, National Women's Trade Union League Papers of Arnerica (Hereafkr NWTUL Papers), Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mas. (Microfilm Edition of the Papers of the WïüL and its Principal Leaders). Mary Kenney O'Sullivan was a bindny worker whose help in the organization of Ladies Federal Labor Union No. 2703 of the American Federation of Labor (An)made her the An's first woman organizer. Barbara Mayer Wertheimer, We Were ïhere: The Story of Working Women m Amena (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977)- 267.

2 In addition to OfSullivan, founders included seîtlement worker and socialist WiIliam English Walling, a Boston philanthropist Mary Kehew, senlement workers Jane Addams, Lillian Wald and Mary McDoweU, shirtwaist rnaker and Knights of Labor activist Leonora OReilly, a shoernaker by the name of Mary Donovan, and garment workers Mary Freitas and EUen Lindstrom Wertheimer7 We Were There: The Story of Wovkng Women in Arne- 265-28 1; Philip Foner, Women and the Americm? Labor Movement: From Colonial Times to the Eve of Worki W'ar I,vol. 1, (New York: The Free Ress, 1979), 25 1,295.

3Foner, Women anù the American Ldor Movement, vol. 1,295-296. headquarters in Chicago, and soon afterwards local Leagues opened in New York

Chicago and Boston. During the next fifteen years League supporters opened other local

Leagues in several cities throughout the Nonhem United States, and in 1929 League activities were extended into the south.' As their primary objective League founders planned to create an egahtarian cross-class alliance of women dedicated to improving the working conditions of femaie wage eamers through trade unionism. Leaders sought to achieve this goal by strengthening existing unions and creating new unions of women wage eamers. They dso hoped to educate the American public and the mainstrearn male labor movement about the depiorable conditions under which women labored, as well as their pressing need to organize into trade unions.

From the beginning, the League sought to establish close ties with the Amencan

Federation of Labor (An).Its constitutional platform included a provision that wherever possible, unions that they organized would afliliate with the appropriate An local.'

Despite hopes of eniisting the support, hancial and othenvise, of organized labor, League leaders were continually mistrated by An President Samuel Gompers' uninterested and generally patronizing attitude toward the organization of women workers. Although the crafl union emphasis of the An excluded rnost women owing to their concentration in low skilled trades, Gompers did Linle to assist the League in carnpaigns to help these women achieve organization. WMe publicly Gompers professed his support of the

1Nancy Schrom Dye, As EQuaLs andm Sisters: Feminim, the hbor Mowment, d the Womenk Traie Union Leagrie of New York (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, l98O), 5.

'philip Foner, Women mui the Arne- Labor Movement, vol. 1,3 17-322; Wfiarn Chafe, fie Amencm Wom:Her Chcnigmg Srocid, Ecoromic unà Political Roles, NZO- 19 70 (London: Mord University Press, 1972), 76-79. 3 League, in reality he gave the League virtuaily no assistance. By 19 13, hstrated by the

An's lack of support, and having achieved only moderate organizational success, the

League increasingly tunied its attention toward the passage of su5age and protective labor legislation as the best avenue for improving working conditions for women wage earners. Nevertheless, although the League fded to achieve its primary goal of organizing women into the predominantly male American labor movement, the contributions the

WTLZ made to the Progressive Movement, to the Labor Movement, and in the Lives of working wornen, should not be underestirnated.

Under the able leadership of Margaret Dreier Robins, a Chicago philanthropist who held the position of President of the NWTUL from 1907 to 1922, the League vigorousiy pursued the organization and education of wornen workers, as weU as the enactment of sufhge and protective labor legislation. The League provided organizers, funds and favorable publicity for numerous strikes involving women workers, including corset workers in Illinois, collar starchers in Troy, textile workers in Boston, shirtwaist makers in New York and Philadelphia, and many others. In 191 1, enabled by the financial sponsorship of Margaret Robins, the League published its first copy of Lije mtd Labor. which would serve as its officia1 journal fiom 191 1 to 192 1.6 Three years later the

National League opened a training school for women workers providing both academic and practical education.' Many historians argue that the League's most signincant

%me Kirby, "Class, Gender and the Peds of PManthropy: The Story of Life dhbw and Labor Reform in the Women's Trade Union League," Journal of Women's History 42 (1992): 36-5 1.

7Margaret Dreier Robins, "Need of a National Training School for Wornen Organiras: The Minimum Wage Industria1 Education," June 1913; "School for Active Worken in the Labor 4 accomplishrnent was the education of women for positions of leadership. The League produced some of Amenca's most vocal and influentid proponents of the rights of women workers.' Mary Anderson, Rose Schneidermaq Elizabeth Christman, Agnes Nestor,

Leonora O'Reilly, and many other League members went on to assume important posts within their communitieg and within the govement. While the League did not achieve the mass organization of women workers, its educational endeavors, its representation of women workers in the suffrage movernent, its governrnent Iobbying for protective Iabor legislation, and its role as the only national organization to provide a voice for women workers, assure the League a lasting place arnong the important refom movernents of the

Progressive Era.

While many local Leagues embarked on organitational drives, the New York

Women's Trade Union League (NY WTUL) sustained the most intensive organizing effons and ultimately achieved the greatea ~uccess.~Much of the success of the New

York League can be attributed to its size, and to the dedicated leadership of Rose

Schneiderrnan, who served as President from 19 18 to 1949. Because of the success of the

New York League, and the fact that it is the oniy local League whose records have survived, this analysis wili focus on the National and New York Women's Trade Union

-- Movement, 1915," Red 1, NWnn Papers; Margaret Dreier Robins, "Education Plans for the Nwnn,'' Lfe mdLabor, June 19 14, Red 5, WTUL Publications, Schlesinger Libraq. Radcliffe Cokge, Cambridge, Mass. (Microfilm Edition of the Papers of the WïUL and its Principai Leaders).

8Wertheimer, We Were Tnere: The Stoy of Workng Women in Amerka, 265-292.

?or a brief explanation of why the other local Leagues did not achieve the success of the New York League see Dye, As Eqt~alsmdAs Sisters, 8. 5

Leagues. A comparative analysis of these Leagues wîil dernonstrate the obstacles which impeded the organhtion of women, as well as the conditions necessary for their unionization.

While scholarship on the WomenfsTrade Union League has expanded greatly in the last twenty years, there have been no extensive examinations of the Leaguefstreatment of, or interaction with, Afncan-Amencan women workers. A survey of the literature reveals that writings on the WTUL have benefited fiom four generai lines of inquiry. First, a number of hiaorians of the League have analyzed its commitment to combining feminisrn with trade unionism in the attempt to irnprove women's working conditions.

These hiaorians debate whether the League was dedicated to change through trade unionism, that is the organization of women into trade unions, or through social reform such as protective labor legislation. Nancy Schrom Dye, Robin Miller Jacoby, Nice

Kessler-Harris and William Chafe argue that because of the organizational difficulties that the League encountered, League members increasingly tumed toward the enactrnent and implementation of labor legislation and suffrage to hprove the workhg conditions of women wage emers." These hiaorians contend that in the League's shift ftom direct organizing to political and legislative activity, leaders "emphasized their role as feminist

1%ye, As Lpds and As Sisiers; Dye, "C reating a Feminist Aihance: Sisterfiood and Class Conflïct in the New York Women's Trade Union League, 1903- 19 14," Ck.Sm arld the Womcm Worker, eds. Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1977): 225-245; Robin Miller Jacoby, "The Wornen's Trade Union League and American Feminism," Ch5kx dtheWom Worker: 203-2î4; Alice Kessler-Hamis, Out to Work: A History of Wage-Eanting Women in the United States (New York: -rd University Press, 1982), 205; Wiam CMe, Tne Amerifan Womanr Her ChgingSocial, Economic and Politicol Roles. f92t%i97O, 70-76. social reformers rather than their identity as trade unionias. "" Mead of arguing for the similarities between female and male wage earners, League members emphasized the need to protect the fùture mothers of the nation fiom the edsof industrial employment.

However, as Joan G. Zimmeman's discussion of the codict between proponents of protective labor legislation and proponents of the first Equal Rights Amendment demonstrates, the former's emphasis on the differences between women and men was a calculated strategy that aimed to convince the courts of the constitutionality of laws regulating women's workuig conditions. l2

Along the same hes as Dye, Jacoby and Chafe, ALice Kessler-Harris, Elizabeth

Anne Payne and Susan Eaabrook Kennedy argue that the actions of Margaret Dreier

Robins, Rose Schneiderman, and the articles found in Lrfr rmd Labor, ail reflect the

League's changing course from organitational to legislative activity." Kessler-Harris

"Jean G.Zimmerman, "The Jurisprudence of Equaiity: The Women's Minimum Wage, the First Equal Rights Amendment, and Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 1905- 1 923," Jmml of Amtricm Hi~rory78 (1 99 1): 188-225. Zimmerman argues that Florence Kelley (executive secretary of the National Consumers League and one of the most vocal proponents of protective labor legislaiion), utilized an argument for protective legislation which rested on a "new sociological jurisprudence of instrumentalism" that focuseci on the public good and social needs of groups aich as women, workers and children. This stance brought her into direct contlia with the arguments of legai formalism which stressed ùidividuaiisrn and equality, fowarded by defendas of the Equai Rights Amendment such as Ahce Paul of the Natioriai Wornan's Party. See also Kaîhryn Kish Sklar's, Florence Kelley cod the Nation's Wurk: î2e Hise of Women'sPolitical Culture, 1830-1960 (New Havai: Yale Universiîy Press, 1995). ce Kessler-Hamis, "Rose Schnadennan and the Liof Women's Trade Unionism," Lnbw Leaders in Arnericq eds. Melvyn Dubofkky and Warren Van The (Urbana: University of &ois Press, 1987): 160- 1 84; Elizabeth Amie Payne, Refrm, Lnbor ond Feminisn: Mc~gaetmer Robins and the Women's Trode Union League (Wrbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988); Susan Estabrook Kennedy, "'The Want It Sati';fies Demonstrates The Need of It': A Study of Life dLuborand the Women's Trade Union League." InternafioIM[Jo1maI 7 asserts that as a consequence of the antipathy of organized labor, Rose Schneiderman for the most part abandoned her trade union principles by 1917, for the pursuit of su5age and protective labor legislation. Kessler-Hhs contends that the New York League's organizational efforts declined as it was transformed into an "effective lobbying organization on behalf of working women. " "

In a combined biography of Margaret Dreier Robins, and an analysis of the

NWTUL, Elizabeth Anne Payne asserts that Robins' social reform approach to change determined the direction of the National League. She argues that because of Robins' befief that the state could be used to transfomi women's working conditions, the National

League concentrated on civic uplift and social ref~rm.'~Similady, Susan Estabrook

Kennedy argues that initiaIiy the League and Life rmd hbor ernphasized the need to organke women, but that by 19 13 the League's shift to political activity was reflected in the journal's articles. These hidorians attribute the League's in strategy and goals to the lack of support it received ftom the AFL, and to the difficulties it encountered in its attempts to organize women workers.

In contrat to these works, Diane Kirby argues that the League was organized around a tripartite structure which emphasized education, organization and legislation. She contends that the League had tumed toward legislation before 19 13 as a means to secure

of women'ssh~des3:4 (1980):391406.

14 Kessler-Harris, "Rose Schneiderman and the Limits of Women's Trade Unionism," 174.

15Payne, Refonn, LuLabw and Ferninim. 1 -6. the continued presence of women in the labor force, under more egalitarian conditions.16

Robin Miller Jacoby similarly argues that the League had a tripartite structure, but in contrast to Dye, Kessler-Harris and Chde, she asserts that education emerged as the dominant thmst of League activity." In We Were 7here: Tne Stoty of Worhg Women in

America, Barbara Wertheimer also argues that the League's greatest accornplishment lay in its training of women for leadership roles." For the most part, however, hiaorians agree that the League was formed as a trade unionist organizatioq but that as a consequence of its organizational difficulties and the hostilities it encountered fiom the

An,by 19 13 the League had shifted its focus f?om organizing, to legislative activiîies that revolved around the passage of sufiage and the irnplementation of protective labor legislation.

Second, historians have extensively exaMned the class dynamics of the League.

Scholars such as Nancy Schrom Dye, Wiliiarn Chafk, and Diane EGrby argue that while the

League went fùrther than any other organization of the Progressive Era in establishing ties between working-class and rniddle-class women, it was never able to transcend divisive class daerences.l9 These historians argue that because of the League's dependence on the

1"Diane Kirby, "The Wage-Eaniing Woman and the State: The Nationai Wornen's Trade Union League and Protective Labor Legislation, 1903- 1923," Labor History 28: 1 ( 1987): 54- 74.

17 Robin Miller lacoby, "The Women's Trade Union League Training Schwl for Women Organizers, 19 14- 1926," Sisierhd and SoIihty: Workrs' Eat~catibnfor Women, 1914 1984, eds. Joyce L. Kornbluh and Mary Frederickson (Philadelphia: Temple University Ress, 1984): 5-35.

18~ertheirner7We Were nere: n>e St0r-y of Working Women in Americn. 267-292.

19~ye7 As Eqilals cmd As Sisters; me7"Creating a Feminist Aiiiance,";Kirby, "Clas. wealth and influence of its upper class membership, the League was never able to achieve an egalitarian cross-class alliance of ~omen.~'They assert that the upper-class allies deterrnined the League's agenda. in another analysis of class dynamics, Sara Eisenstein attributes the fdure of the League to organize women workers to the "weakness of indigenous organization among working class women." She contends that social factors which impeded the development of a working-class consciousness arnong women lay at the root of the League's organizational dfi~ulties.~~Utimately, these historians agree that the ideal of an egalitarian cross-class aliiance was never realized.

Thirdly, historians of the WTUL have written extensively on the League's troubled relationship with the Amencan labor movement, as represented by the AFL. Arguing for the need to make gender the focus of future labor studies, scholars such as Aiice Kessler-

Hamis and Ruth Milkman argue that the exclusion of women from the organized labor movement served to institutionalize the inferior status of the woman worker. They contend that the AFL's crafi union ernphasis and its unwiilingness to take the piight of

Gender and the Perds of Philanthropy,"; CMe, The Amerimz Womcm

2'~araEisenstein, Giw Us Bread But Give Us Roses: Workng Womenk Conrciuz~rsnssin the United States. 1890 to the FFN World Wm (London: Routledge, 1983), 152.

"AIice Kessler-Hanis, "Where are the Organized Women Workers?," A Herituge of her Own: Toward a New Social Hzstory of Amen'm Wumen. eds. Nancy F. Cott and Elizabeth Pleck (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979): 343-366; Kessler-Harris, "Problems of coalition building: women and trade unions in the 1920s7" Women, Work dProtest: A Centwy of US. Wumen's Labor Histoty* ed. Ruth Millmüui (Boston: Routledge, 1985): 1 10-138; Ruth Mùkman "Genderand Trade Unionism in Historic.1Penpective," Wmen,Poiitics. cmd Change. 4s. Louise A Tilly and Patricia Gurin (New York Russell Sage Foundation, 1990): 87- 107; James Kennedy, Women and Amerkm Tradé Unions (Montreai: Eden Press, 2 98 1). 10 women workers senously, significanty hampered League efforts to reach out to working- class women. Through discriminatory and exclusionary practices, and lack of financial support, the AFL seriously impeded League efforts to organize women into trade unions.

Finally, a number of historians have written on the role of, and contribution that the WTUL made to the Progressive Movement and to the Women's Movement. In

Naturai Allies: Women's Associations in Americm History, Anne Firor Scott argues that the WTUL was part of the cross-class social justice movement of the early twentieth century. She contends that the League was one of a number of women's organizations that created oppomuiities for women, built community institutions, shaped public policy, defined the emerging class structure, and helped women achieve suffrage." In the

Grounding of Modern Ferninim. Nancy Cott contends that the WTUL contributed to the

"birth of modem ferninism," which she dates in the second decade of the twentieth- century. She asserts that the League's contribution to th~smovement lay in its emphasis on trade union consciousness and the economic independence of ~ornen.~''In "Women and

American Politics," Suzanne Lebsock argues that through women's voluntary associations such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the National American Woman

Suffrage Association and the Wnn, -4merican women became poiiticaiiy active well before they achieved suffrage. She asserts that the distinct women's political culture of this period profoundly influenced the contours of the Progressive Movement, and contributed

23 Anne Firor Scott, Nafural Allies: Women's Associaiions in Americm History (Uhana: University of Illinois Press, 199 1).

2 %kmy Con, The GrOUIaCa'ing ofModem Feminsm (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987). to the shifk fiom mass politics to interest group lobbying?

As a consequence of the works of Dye, Kessier-Harris Jacoby and many others, we now understand that the goal of an egalitarian cross-class alliance of working and middle-class women always remained more of an ideal than reality. This literature has also disclosed the League's varying approaches to social change as it pursued its goal to improve women's working conditions through trade unionism, social reform and education. What none of these sources address however, is the relationship between black women workers and the WTUL. Further, most of these sources focus on the first Meen years of the League's existence. By excluding an analysis of the later years, these works fail to explore the relationship which developed between Afkican-Amencan women and the League during the mid and late 1920s and 1930s.

Annelise Orleck's Cornmon Sense and a Liftle Fire: Women anci Working-Class

P olitics in fhe LhifedStates, 1900-1965. offers one of the only treatrnents of the League's relationship to black women ~orkers.~~Her analysis, however, is limited to a brief exploration of the New York League's interaction with Atncan-Amencan women workers. Orleck argues that Rose Schneideman and Leonora O'Reilly prodded the

- - - p. -. - - 25 Suzanne Lebsock, "Women and Arnerican Poiitics, 1880- 1920," Wumen, Politics and C'hange: 3 562. See also Wdiam Chafe, 'Wornen's History and Politid History: Some Thoughts on ProgreSSiviSm and the New Deal," Yïsible Women: New Escys on Arnerimn Activim, eds. Nancy A Hewitt and Suzanne Lebsock (ürbanx University of IUinois Press, 1993): 10 1- 118. For another srplmation of the separate women's political dhire which emerged at the end ofthe nineteenth ce- please see Kathryn Kish Sklar's FIorence Kelley and the Naton's Work: ï?ie fise of Women 's PoIiticui Culnue, 1830-1960. Placing Kelley at the center of analysis, Sklar brilliady recreates the contours of Chicago's fdepublic dture.

26 Annelise Orleck Cornmon &me daLittle Fire: Women and Workng-CkPolitics in the United States, 190û-1965 (Chape1 W:University of North Carofina Press, 1995),9û-9 1, 160-163. 12 League to reach out to black women workers, and that the organizational campaigns of the 1930s included a large nurnber of Latino, Caribbean and Afncan-American women workers. While Orleck's work begins to address a void in the Literanire, it should be taken as a springboard for merresearch into the interaction between black wornen workers and the League.

While the scholarship on the WTUL fails to address the relationship between the

League and black women workers, literature on the experiences of Aûican-Amencan women wage eamers also fails to explore this relationship. While many of these works cite the fdure of the An and the WTUL to organize black workers, moa of these works focus on the separate, collective strategies Afiican-Arnerican women employed outside the rnainstream labor movement. In " Survivai Strategies: A Continuing Process," Rosalyn

Terborg-Penn argues that by using collective su~valstrategies based on traditional

Afncan mutud ai4 black women were able to achieve organization in even the most

"unorganizable" of trade~.~'in "When Your Work is not Who You Are," Sharon Harley contends that as a consequence of their exclusion fiom moa labor organizations, including the WTWL, black women workers developed a working-class consciousness outside the trade unionist vein, and were able to improve their working conditions through individual efforts or as members of various a~sociations.~~While such accounts emphasize Afiican-

27 Rosaiyn Terborg-Penn, "Survival Strategies arnong Afkan-American Women Workers: A Continuing Process," WOMCM.Work wdProtest: A Ce- of US. Wornen's Lobw Hzstory: 139-1 55.

"~haronHadey, "When Your Work 1s Not Who You Are: The Devdopment of a Working-Class Consciousness arnong Af?kan-Amerîcan Women," Geder, Ch,Race and Refonn in the Progresrive Eru, eds. Noralee Frankel and Nancy Schrom Dye (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 199 1): 42-5 5. See also Paula Giddings, When rmd Where 1 Arnerican agency, they fail to shed Light on black women's unionization effons within the

Arnerican Iabor movement .

Furthemore, scholars exarnining the racial policies of the organized labor rnovement do so within a decidedly androcentric fiamework. These scholars have expiicitly or implicitly defineci the black worker as male. Herbert HilI, David Roediger and

Eric Arnesen argue that historians of labor have failed to recopke the "centrality of race in Amencan history "" They contend that traditionai Mancist scholarship has fded to recognize factors other than class, and that future labor studies must not only recognize the racisrn of the organked labor movement, but also the racisrn of white workers. While such works recognize the centrality of race in the formation of white working-class consciousness, like studies which place gender at the center of analysis, they fail to explore the convergence of race, class and sex in shaping the experiences of Afiïcan-American women workers. With a few notable exceptions, labor studies define the woman worker as white, and the black worker as male.30

While the literature on the WTUL, black women workers and Afncan-Amencan

Enter: neImpacr of Bkk Women on Race cad Sex in Americu (New York: Warn Morrow and Co., 1984).

"Herbert tIiU, "The Problern of Race in Arnerican Labor History," Reviews in Americmt Histoty 24 ( 1996): 189-208,204 (quote); David Roediger, 7he Wuges of FKhitettess: rare mtd the rnaking of the Arne- working clarr (London: Verso, 199 1); Eric Amesen, "Foliowing the Color Line of labor: Black Workers and the Labor Movement Before 1930," Radcal History Review 55 (1993): 53-87.

30 See for example, David Ka.tmm, Shen dqys a week: women andhmestic service in industrialz,7ng Americu (New York: Mord Univerdy Press, 1978) and Dolores Janiewski, SisterhotxiDenierL race, gemkr and chin a Nov South commtmity (Philadelplia: Temple University Press, 1986). 14 workers is irnpressive, none of it examines the relationship between the WTUL and

A.f?ican-American wornen wage earners. An analysis of the relationship which existed between a women's labor organization on the penphery oÇ but not accepted as part of the larger male-dominated labor movement, and a group of workers discriminated against on the basis of their class, race and se- wili offer insights into the dynamics of cross-class and interracial alliances within the context of the Women's Labor Movement. An examination of this relationship wiu reveal both predictable tensions and unexpected rapprochements between African-Arnerican women workers and the white upper and rniddle-class activists of the WTUL.

The fïrst chapter of this thesis will explore the National WïUL's official policy regarding Afiican-American women workers, as well as some of their organizationd campaigns that included black women workers. Most irnportantly, this analysis wiil distinguish between rhetoric and reality, and attempt to uncover why the League's rhetorical cornmitment to racial equality never translated into a concerted attack on the racist practices of the mainstream American labor movement, or the workhg class.

The second chapter wdi explore the New York WTWL's campaign to organize

New York City's laundry workers, the majority of whom were Afncan-Amencan women.

This campaign has been chosen as a case study because it is the largest unionization drive of black women workers, embarked upon by any of the Leagues, including the National

League. This analysis will attempt to explain why the New York League was interested in organizing a group of workers cornposed largely of black women, at a thewhen the

National and other local Lewes made few efforts on the behaif'of black women workers. 15

An analysis of the experiences of Atncan-American women laundry workers will allow for an exploration of the complex relationship between racial and gender identities and working-class conxiousness. This chapter will also examine the diffculties the League encountered in its attempt to organize these women, and the reasons why they were unable to do so during the 1920s.

The final chapter will focus on the successfùl organïzation of the laundry workers of New York City during the mid and late 193Os. It will attempt to outline the factors which contributed to this success. In doing so, this study will reveal the historical circumstances under which black women were able to achieve unionization, as well as those that impeded organization. By examining the alliance between black women laundry workers and upper-class female activists of the NY WTUL, this paper will explore the dynamics of cross-class and interracial alliances withùi the context of the Women's Labor

Movement. Finally, this thesis will reveai that analyses which fail to consider race, class and gender as interdependent social categones are inadequate for explaining the expenences of Mcan-Amencan women workers.

To illuminate the relationship between the WTUL and Amcan-American women workers, this thesis will draw upon four sources: the manuscript collections of the WTUL,

New York WTüL, and of its major leaders; public documents; oral histones and census data. The Papers of the WïUL will offer insight into the relationship fiom the perspectives of the white female activists of the League. Convention proceedings, platforms, programs and pubtished articles demonstrate the League's official stance toward black women workers, while organkational reports and personal writings document their 16 efforts at unionkation and their organizational difficulties, as weii as their persond reflections on black women workers.

However, it is equally important to examine this relationship Born the perspectives of the black women workers involveci. A number of oral history projects, including ne

Twmtzieth Cen~uryTde Union Wornmz: Vehiclefor Social Change, and the Black

Woman Oral History Project, contain interviews with black women worken associat ed with the ~ea~ue.''As weii, a nurnber of Women's Bureau Publications shed Iight on the expenences of black women laundry workers, and illuminate the dinerent treatment accorded white and black female laundry operatives. Finally, census data aIlows us to determine the scope of the laundry industry, as weIl as its employment oppominities. This range of sources will ailow for a thorough and balanced exploration of the relationship tiom the perspectives of both black wornen workers and WTUL activists.

"nie Twentieth CenwTi& Union Wom:Féhicle for Social Change, The Mtute of Labor and Industrial Relations, Michigan Historical CoUections, Bentley Hktorical Library. University of Michigan; Bk& Woman UrafHi~lory Project, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Coilege, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Chapter Two

"When you can find your way dear to join hands with your sistem of darker hue": The National Women's Trade Union League and African-Amencan Women Workers

In 1922, at the Eighth National Convention of the Women's Trade Union League,

Irene Go&, the sole Afiican-American rnember of the Chicago Women's Trade Union

League, asserted that:

the tirne has corne when we [fican Americans] want to know more about organizatioq when you are seeking to teach us more, and 1 believe that with the assistance of the National Women's Trade Union League and with the assistance of the Local Leagues and with the fact that you have elimuiated the word 'white' in some of your Local Leagues, you will admit your sister regardless of race or color, and that is going to be the one great thing that will help you and it of course will help us, when you can find your way clear to join hands with your sisters of darker hue?

Goinst faith in the National Women's Trade Union League (NWTLTL) Likely sprang from her knowledge of the League's anti-racist rhetoric. The WTCn's constitution, convention proceedings and publications reflect its dedication to pursuing racial equality within the

American labor movement and within American society. On many occasions League members recognized and condemned the exploitation of Afiican-Arnerican women industrial workers and pledged to help them organize into the respective unions of their trades. In practice, however, the League was unable to Live up to its rhetoric of racial

1Irene Go@ "The Colored Workers," Proceedings ojthe Eighlh Biennial Comention of the NatratronafWomen's Tradé Union League of Americq l922,67, Reel 1, WTUL Publicaiions, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Coiiege, Cambridge, Mass. (Microfilm Edition of the Papers of the Women's Trade Union League and its Principal Leaders). equaiity. In its fira two decades of existence the League concemed itself'primarily with organizing immigrant and white Amencan-bom women workers and did virtually nothing to reach out to black women workers. Moreover, duruig those organizational campaigns which did include Anican-American workers, the League acquiesced and assisted in the establishment of segregated "hCrow" locals. Although the League recognized the pragmatic advantages of helping black women organize, as a consequence af the racial clirnate of the early twentieth cenhrry, the League's rhetoric of equality did not lead to a concerted challenge of racist practices in the mainstream labor movement, or the American working class.

Despite its failure to achieve practical change, the League's anti-racist rhetoric sets it apart from many other reform movements of the Progressive ~ra.~As early as 1922 the

League added race to its constitutional plaaorm of "Equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex or race."' About the same tirne, at League conventions, members began passing resolutions which opposed discrimination against Afncan-herican women workers, and advocated the solidarity of white and black women wage earners. Racial issues were

- - 2 See for example Sara Hunter Graham's examination of the racial practices of the National Arnerican Woman SufEage Association (NAWSA)in Sara Hurrter Graham, Womcm.Szrffruge ard the New Demucrq (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1W6), 2 1-25. Graham contends that by the eady twentieth century NAWSA had essentidy "excludeci blacks f?om any meanuigful participation in their association." Not only would NAWSA not corne out in support of universal wornan whge, but they also denied membership applications fîom groups such as the National Association of Colored Women

'constitution of the NWTUL of America, Pruceedrngs ofthe Eighh Biemiai Convention of the NK"UZ of Amenca, 1922,2, Reel 1, NWTüL Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Cokge, Cambridge, Mass. (Microfilm Edition of the Papen of the WTUL and its Principal Leaders). 19 addressed at the Eighth, Nith, Tenth and TweW National ~onventions."At the Eighth

Biennial Convention in 1922, Irene Goins reporteci on the employment of black women during the Fira World War. She argued that histoncally fican Arnencans had been denied the knowledge and means to organize, but "that with the assistance of the National

Women's Trade Union League and with the assistance of the Local Leagues" black women could be admittecl into unions "regardless of race or color. "' Her optirnistic, if somewhat naive assertion was heartily endorsed by NWTUL President Margaret Dreier ~obins.~At the Nith Biennial Convention in 1924, Goins again ernphasized the "very great need of organization of colored women workers. "'Foliowing her speech, convention delegates unanimously adopted a resolution advocating the unionization of black women workers.'

Margaret Dreier Robins also took the opportunity to acknowledge the "tremendous service Mrs. Goins has given to this cause."'

Two years later at the Tenth National Convention the League again committed

%ese conventions spanned the yean 1922- 1926 and 1929- 1936. See Reel 1, WTUL Publications.

5 Irene Goins, "The Colored Workers," Proceedings of the Eighth Biennial Cor~e~ztionof the NWTUL ofilmenca, l922,67, Reel 1, WTUL Publications.

7 Irene Goins, "Resolution No. 29," Proceedings of the Ninth Biennial Convention of the Nwnn of Arnencq 1924, 1 14, Reel 1, WTUL Publicatons.

'"~eportof Commatee on OîEicers' Reports," Proceedmgs of the Ninth Biemial Cornmtion of the heLof Amerka, 1924,85, Red 1, WTUL Publications. 20 itself to "creating openuigs for colored girls and women.. .in fields of industry." 'O

Proceedings fiom the Tweifih National Convention in 1936 reveal the League's growing awareness of the racist practices found within the Amencan labor movement. In a strongly worded resolution, League members vigorously condemned the discriminatory policies practised by the American Federation of Labor, and by many of its 10cals.~' Resolution

No. 15, introduced by the Washington, D.C. WTCTL, asserted that "withinthe Amencan

Federation of Labor, artificiai barriers of color have been set up between workers by constitution and by-laws and cuaom. "12 Consequently, delegates resolved that "the

National Women's Trade Union League in convention assembled, goes on record for foaenng during the corning year an energetic campaign for the organization of negro women and for the abolition of artificial barriers of color within the labor rnovement. "'j At the same convention, League delegates resolved to elect a cornmittee to devise a strategy to carry out this campaign. League delegates specificaily targeted the organization of black women garment workers in Chicago, and black women laundry and domestic

1@Mn. Adolph Bock "Resolution No. 1 8," Proceedigs of the Tenth Biennui Convention of the NWTUL of Arne- 1924- 1926,907Red 1. WTUL Pub iications.

11 Washington, D.C. National Cornmittee, "Organizaton of Negro Women Workers, " Resolution No. 15, Proceedings of the Twe,frh Comention: NWXK of Arne- 1929- 193 6, 112, Red 1, WTUL Publications. It should be noted that after 1926, in order to reduce costs, League conventions were held every three years instead of eveq two years. Mer 1929, due to continuing financiai problems, League conventions were ofken held as rnany as seven years apafi-

13 Tbid., 112. workers in New York City and Washington, D.C. lJ

Ironically perhaps, at the same convention, Mary Mason Jones of Washington,

D.C. pointed out that the fact that she was "the only negro representative here would argue the need of the organization of negro women. "15 Referring to racial anirnosities between white and black workers, Mason insisted on "the duty of the Women's Trade

Union League to help break domthis feeling between white and negro workers."

Speaking on behaifof the black community, she asked for "the whole-hearted cooperation of aii women of good wili, to make Life more abundant for everybody." I6 While

League delegates rose and applauded Mason's speech, meeting such expectations constituted an entirely different matter. l7

League members did more than pass convention resolutions emphasizing the need to help black women workers unionize. League publications often dealt with issues confronting the black community, as well as those confronting Ahican-American women workers. As early as 19 14, Life mcnld Labor, the official journal of the MNTUL fi-om 19 1 1-

192 1, included articles on the stahis of black industrial workers, as well as reports on event s within the black community. l8 Articles condemning discrimination against African-

15 Ibid., 113.

17 Ibid., 113.

18For example, "The Colored People of Chicago," Life 4Labor* May 19 14: 140- 144; Zona Gale, 51.A Colored Women's Biennid," Lge dLabor. Sept. 1914: 264-268; Mary Roberts Srmth, "The Negro Woman as an Industrial Factor," Lrfe andLaborpJan. 19 18: 7-8; Forrester B. Washington, "Reconstruction and the Colored Woman," Life dLubor, Jan. Amencan women workers also suggested that white and black women emphasize "identity rather than ciifference," and work collectively toward the anainment of higher wages and better working conditions.lg Although these appeals attempted to foster a feeling of sisterhood, themes of fernale solidarity across racial lines naively glossed over essential difFerences in the expenences of white and black women workers.

Mer the Chicago race riots of 1 9 19, Lije and hbor published a scathing article written by T. Arnold HiIl, executive secretary of the Chicago Urban ~eague."In it W asserted that in Chicago during the riots a "reign of malice, envy, hatred, retaiiation ran its course, prompted by nothing more than antagonism by one group for another" and that

"Chicago has made for herself a disgraceful, shamefùl disgusting chapter of history "21

While on paper the League appeared generdy concerned with events aEecting the black community, and specifically concerned with the plight of Afiican-Arnerican women

19 19: 3-7; "The Case of the Negro Worker," Lge andlnbor, Juiy 192 1 : 2 19-220. AU fkom Reel6, WTLlL Publications. For an extensive discussion of Life dcmdor see Diane Kirby, "Class, Gender and the Perils of Philanthropy: The Story of Ljfe dLabor and Reform in the Women's Trade Union League, " Jarnaal of Women's History 4 ( 1 992): 3 6-5 1 .

'%fary Van Kleeck, 'Wew Standards for Negro Women in Industry," Lijë dhbor,June 1919: 134-135, Reel6, WTIJL Publications.

20The Chicago race not began July 27 when an Afiican-American young man inadvertentiy swarn hto part of Lake Michigan reserved for white swimmers. Following an altercation with white swimmers, the young man drowned, leading the black comunity to believe that he had been murdered. For the foilowing thirteen days Chicago was in a state of anarchy as black and whites rioteci in what was to becorne the most intense racial outbreak of 19 19. In the end 38 people were kiiled and 537 were injured. See John Hope Franw From Slavery to Freeabm: A Htstory of AfimArneriumr. Seventh edition (New York: Aified A KnopS 1994), 3 50- 35 1.

"T. Arnold W, "Race AntagoniSm. Its Cost and Its Cure," Li$e and Labor. Sept. 19 19: 222,238, Reel6, WTUL Publications. 23 workers, this apparent concem remained largely rhetorical. In practice, the League proved unwilling or unable to challenge racial hierarchies within the working class, or within the Amencan trade-union movement.

Aithough the League's rhetoric of equality did not lead to practical change, given the racial clirnate of the early twentieth century, the League's egaiitarian discourse regarding the nghts of Afncan-Amencan workers is remarkable. The League's interest in the piight of black women workers arose largely f?om its recognition that "the extremely low wages paid the negro wornen tend to lower the pay of aii women."* Its interest in raishg the working standards and wage levels ofblack women workers was part of its campaign to improve working conditions for al1 women. League members recognized that black women compnsed one of the moa exploited groups of women workers, and that as long as there was a large unorganized pool of black labor, conditions of work for al1 women would not improve. In an Executive Board meeting of 1910, League members responded to the use of black workers as stnkebreakers by asserting that "action must be taken to organize the colored women workers, both for their own protection and for the protection of the white workers." Out of concem that black women would drive down the wages of al1 wornen, at the same meeting League members passed a resolution to "offer its seMces to the National Association for the Protection of Colored Women stating the very great desire of the League to cooperate with them in their efforts to protect the colored

22 Washington, D.C. National Cornmittee, "Organization of Negro Women Workers," Resolution No. 1 5, Proceedmgs of the Twelfth Corneniion: AWRL of Arne- 1929-1936. 11 1, Reel 1, WTUL Publications. women workers through organization. ""

The League's anti-racist rhetoric and pledges to help black women unionize were informed more by pragmatic considerations than a genuine desire to help Afiican

Americans achieve racial equality. However, at a tirne when reform groups such as the

National American Woman SuBage Association were working to exclude black women, the League's professions of racial equality are quite rernarkab~e.~~Further, although much of the League's rhetorical commitment to racial equality sprang from practical considerations, Leonora OReilly of the New York WTUL proved to be the exception to this de. A former Knights of Labor activist, OReiUy was involved in the founding of the

NWTU, and served as Vice President of the NY WTUL from 1904 to 19 14. Among other causes OReiliy was genuineiy interested in advancing black nghts. As early as 1906

O'Reilly attended meetings of the Constitution League, a group devoted to the "organized protest of the Amencan conscience and American intelligence against race prejudice."

Among other activities, the Constitution League opposed black lynchings and advocated black voting nghtsZ

23 Quoted in Foner, Women and the Amen'm Labot Movement: Frorn Cdorrid Times to the Eve of WFV, vol. 1, (New York: The Free Press, 1979), 340. See ais0 Meredith Tax The Rising of the Women: Ferninisr Solickoty am' Clarr Conflzct. 1880-191 7 (New York: Monthly Review Press, l98O), 226.

24 Graham argues that the "unwritten and largely unspoken NAWSA policy on black wflhyysts was to ignore them whenever possible, or, ifpressed, to refuse their advances poiiteiy but nmily." Graham, Wornan. Su#Fage olui the New Demmacy, 24.

2.5 Constitution League of the United States, July 2,1909, Reel4, Leonora OReiIly Papen Orereafier LOR Papas), Schleshger Libmy, Radcliffe Cokge, Cambridge, Mass. (TvTicrofilm Edition ofthe Papers of the WTUL and its Principal Leaders). 25 In 1909, OReiiiy attended the National Negro Conference, which led to the

formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored ~eo~le?In a

militant speech OReiuy argued that in the face of racial discrimination "nothing is gained

by keeping a still tongue in one's heaâ, when some brother rnay be in monal agony . . . it

behooves us as the White Race, to think sanely over this Negro question. "" OReilly

recognized that Afncan Americans needed economic advancement, as well as social and

political equality.28W~thout a doubt, O'Reilly was the League member moa cornrnitted to

racial equality as a way of Me. Her unwave~gbelief that "We are ail born equai,"

distinguished her fiom the more haIf-hearted approaches of her colleagues on the question

of racial equality?

The activities of the NWnn du~gthe Shirtwaist Strike of 1909 reveal its failure

to tive up to its espoused principles of racial equality. In November of 1909, 18,000

shirtwaist makers in New York City went on strike against deplorable working

conditions.jOLocal No. 25 of the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union had jurisdiction over the workers, but the New York Women's Trade Union League played an

integral role in the strike. Although the League was generaiiy comrnended for its efforts,

an editorial in the black weekly, the New York Age. criticized the League for failing to

'YO~National Diary, vol. 16, May 3 1,1909, Red 1, LOR Papers.

27 LOR 'Negro Speech," 19 10, 1, Reel 10, LOR Papers.

28 Ibid., 3.

%OR, National Diary, vol. 27,55, Reel2, LOR Papen.

30 In New York there were 803 black garment workers. Tax, 7he Rising of the Women. 224. 26 assure the black community that following the strike the Shirtwaist Makers Union would admit black women. The editorial maintained that "Prior to the strike of the waistmakers,

Negro girls were not asked to join the union." Referring to the League as the

"philanthropie sponsor" of the shirtwaid makers nrike, the Age went on to assert that

Afiican-American women had "received no . . . assurance" that after the stdce they would be admitted to the union and that the "forces of labor have been prejudiced and hostile to his industrial strength. "" In January of 19 10, another weekly, Tne Survey, printed an editorial by Alfied T. White which also reported that "colored shirtwaist makers could not get into the union. "j2

During the strike League members such as President Margaret Dreier Robins attempted in vain to assert that the League was amenable to the organization of black women worker~.~'In response to the accusations in the black press, Robins argued that in

Philadelphia "two of the most devoted pickets are colored girls," and that when a black shirtwaist maker appeared at the NY WTUL she was enthusiastically welcomed by League members." A defense based on the League's contact with three black women underlined its Iack of involvement with fican-Arnerican women during the first decade of the twentieth century.

'The Waistrnakers Strike," New York Age 23 ( 19 10): 4. Given the fiict that most of the black shirtwaist makers were women, the authois use of a male pronoun is interesting.

j3~oran explanation of the Shirtwaist Maker's Strike see Philip Foner, Women and the Arne- Labor Movement, vol. 1,324-345 and Taq u5 RMng ofrhe Women, 205-240, see especially 223-226.

''~argaret Dr& Robins, "ShirtwaistMakers' Union," 7he St~my23 (1 9 10): 788. One of the reasons that the League's rhetorical cornmitment to racial equality did not have practical manifestations, is that during its first two decades of existence League leaders concemed themselves primarily with organiruig the newly arrived immigrant woman worker.jS League leaders viewed the immigrant woman as helpless, exploited, and generdy ignorant of her oppression. In 192 1, Agnes Nestor, President of the Chicago

Women's Trade Union League declared that: "The immigrant woman has always been one of our interests. She, more than anyone else, has been exploited, and she has been the most helpless. "j6 League members womed specifically that "bringing her low standards of

Living and her uiherited passivity," the immigrant woman worker would lower the living standard of the white Arnerican-bom woman worker." To help the immigrant woman adjust to Amencan society, in July of 1908 the League formed an Immigration Cornmittee.

Upon receiving the names of female immigrant arrivais at Ellis Island, League leaders attempted to enroll the newly amived women in Enghsh language and American history

course^.'^ League leaders ultimately hoped to Americanize the immigrant woman worker,

"~eetin~of the Executive Cornmittee of the WTUL of New York, Aug. 25, 1905,3; Meeting of the Executive Council of the WTLlL of NY,Sept. 29, 1905,3 5, Red 1, Records of the New York Women's Trade Union League (Hereafier NY WTLTL Records), New York State Labor Library, New York, N.Y (Microfilm Edition of the Papers of the WïU, and its P~cipdLeaders).

36 Agnes Nestor, "Women Workers March ûn," June 1921,2, Reel 1, NWTUL Papers. Agnes Nestor was President of the Chicago League fiom 19 13 to 1948. She also sat on the executive board of the NWTUIL.

37~llenHenrotin, "ûrganization for Womm" 1906,4, Red 1, NWIZR, Papers.

j8~estor,"Women Workers March ûn," 2-3; Minutes of the Monthiy Meeting of the WTUL, May 3, 1909; Minutes ofthe Executive Board Meeting, April 16, 1908; Secremy's Report, Oct. 27, 1908, Re1 1. NY WTUL Records. 28 but they aiso recognized the need to use specorganizational strategies to reach the different immigrant groups. Realizing that "to get the Italian girls we have to use speciai methods," the League created an Italian Cornmittee and employed an Italian woman organizer to work with the Itaiian women." The League's initiai strategy of focusing on immigrant women workers precluded efforts to reach out to either African-Amencan or white American-born women workers.

By 191 1, the Leaguets early attempts to organize Jewish and Italian women had achieved very little organizational success. Consequently, League leaders shifted their focus to the Arnerican- bom woman worker. In an organizationai meeting in March of

19 1 1, leaders asserted that the "League is ready to take the position that the future success of organizïng among the Italian and Jewish women depends upon the organiz;rtion of the

Amencan women."' Hophg that the organization of their native born sisters would induce immigrant working women to join the unions of their trades, the League abandoned many of its strategies airned at specüic Unmigrant groups for a broader approach that revolved around the organization of Arnerican bom women workers.

However, at this point in the "American woman" did not include the Afncan-American woman.

In the same vein as other matemal feminists who argued for women's rights based on their matemal roles, League leaders argued that the working woman's "position in

3~~tesof the Executive Board Meetmg, April 16, 1908; Report to the ExdveBoard, Nov. 24, 1908, Reel 1, NY WTUL Records.

?tepon of Secretary to Executive Board, Mar. 15, 19 1 1,2, Reel 1, NY WTUL Records. society, and that of the child depending on her, is elemental and fundamental."'" The

League assumed that the working woman wouid eventudy lave the worldorce for her

predestined vocation of deand mother. League leaders recognized as an organizational

dficulty that "in the course of events there is a changing membership (for most young

women workers hd7at least, change of occupation in marriage)."" The League's

carnpaign to implement protective labor legislation reflects this matemal feminist

orientation. Nancy Schrom Dye argues that by mid- 19 13 the slow increase in the number

of unionized women had seriously hstrated League members. Consequently, they began to look to labor legislation as the best avenue to improve the conditions of Amenca's

working wornen."' While the League did not entirely abandon organizing, increasingly it

used a larger portion of its fhds to lobby the governrnent for legislation and in the 1920s to fight effons by the National Woman's Party to dismantle protective labor laws. The

41Henrotin, "ûrganization for Women," 1. Matdfeminists argue for women's rights, based not on equaiity of the sexes, but rather because ofwoman's matemal role. In "The Jurisprudence of EqualÏty: The Women's Minimum Wage. the F'iJ2qual Rights Amendmen& and Adhv. Children's Hospital, 1905- 1923, " JmmiofAmenan History 78 ( 1 99 1 ): 1 88- 225, Joan Zimmerman argues that proponents of protective labor legislation, notably Florence Keff ey, developed "elaborate arguments that fmsed on women's materna1 hctions." She contends that their ernphasis on women's matemal role was part of their strategy to convince the courts that legislation regulating women's working conditions was both necessary md constihrtional.

42Jane Stewarf "National Women's Trade Union League," June 19 10,4, Red 1, NWTUL Papen.

'%ancy Schrom Dye, As Eqr& dmSisiers: Feminim, the Labor Mowment, und the Wornenzk Trade Union Leugue of New York (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, l98ûj, 3- 4; Foner, Women and the Amerkm Labor Movemew From World War I to the Present vol. 2 (New York: The Free Press, l98O), 138- 150; Annelise Orle* Cummon Sense daLittle Fzre: Women and Working ChrF Politics in the United Siates, 1900-1965 (Chape1 W: University of North Carolina Press, 1999, 123. League's shifi in focus to protective labor legislation for women in industrial employment decreased its likelihood of reaching black women workers. Most Afiican-Amencan women were concentrated in dornestic service and agricultural labor, occupations which did not fd under the nibnc of protective labor legis~ation.~As such, the League's legislative accompiishments did not irnprove working conditions for the average African-

American woman worker.

When League activists did concentrate on organizationai activity, they had in muid, Young, single, transieni, immigrant and white American-born women workers.

Because black women workers did not fit this profile, (because of low wages ofered to

Af?ïcan-Amencan men, black women workers labored beyond singlehood, and beyond their youth), League members oflen overlooked their presence in the labor force.'" The occupational stahis of the black woman worker also diverged from the League's profile of the working woman. The League was concemed primarily with organinng industrial women workers, particularly wornen gaxment workers. League members argued that the

"exigenciesof industry . . . called it [the League] into being," and that the League's "ranks are recruited fiom every phase of industry. "& Because during the fia part of the twentieth

- - JJ In 1930, nine in ten black women workers in the United States were stiil employed as agridtural laborers or domestic workers. Jean Collier Brown, The Negro Wuman Wurker, United States Department of labor, Women's Bureau, Bulletin no. 165 (1938): 2.

45 Mary White Owigton, an observer of economic and sociai status in the black wmrnunity, argued that while mamage usuaily brought an end to paid ernployrnent for white women, for black women "self-nrstainmg work udybegm at fifteen, and by no means ceases with her entrance upon rnarriage. " In 190,4.2 percent of white married women in New York State worked for wages, compared to 3 1.4 percent of marrieci black women. Mary White ûvi~gton, HaVA Mm: The SMUS of the Negro in New York (New York: HiIl and Wang, 1 969), 77-79.

46 Stewart, "National Wornen's Trade Union League," 1. century black women were excluded £iom most industrial work African-American women workers fell outside the scope of the Leaguefsorganizational efforts.'"

While the League failed to live up to its promises to help black women workers achieve unionkation, it also proved unwilling to chailenge the biraaal unionism of the

Arnerican labor movement." When the League became involved in organizational drives that included Afncan-Arnerican workers, it generally accepted the traditional segregationist policies adopted by the larger male-dorninated unions with whom they ofien worked. In 19 17 the Chicago and National WTLlLs were involved in the carnpaign to organize Chicago's stockyard ~orkers.''~The Leagues soon becarne afnliated with the

Stockyards Labor Council, an inteninion body created to organize the stockyard workers." At the time of organization approxhately 12,000 Afncan Americans worked in

47Brown, The Nego Womm Work.2.

48Eric Amesen describes biracial unionisrn as the organization of workers dong "raciaily separate Lines." It shodd be pointai out that while ficanAmericans generally opposed segregated locds, what they objected to most "wasnot racidy distinct locals but hequality between these locals." Afkan-American workers ofien desired separate locals as a means to avoid discriminatory treatment by white workers, and as way to retain control over their own resources. For an explanation of this strategy see Eric Amesen, "Following the Color Line of Labor: Black Workers and the Labor Movement Before 1930," Radimf History Rrview 55 (1993): 58-59,61-62 (quotes).

4 or an extensive discussion of the carnpaign to organize the stockyard workers see WGam 2.Foster, "How Li& Has Been Brought Into the Stockqards: A Story of the Reorganization of the Packhg Industry," Lije dLabor, April 1918: 63-72, Reel6, Wnn. Publications. For a brief discussion of the role of the WTUL in the Stockyanis Labof Council, see PhiIip Foner, Women cod the Amerim Labor Movement, voi. 2,76.

'Olbid. The Stockyards Labor Councii represented the butchers, blacksmiths, egg inspecton, eleCmcal workers, leather workers, steam agineers, sheet metal workers and many others. See aise WTüL of Chicago7OrganLation Work, Annual Report, June 1917-June 19 l9,4 Red 12, Margaret Dreier Robins Papers (Hereafter MDR Papers), Univers@ of Horida, Gainesville, Fia (Microfilm Edition of the Papers of the WTUL and Its Principal Leaders): Olive M. 32 the Chicago Packing p ou ses." Early on, William Foster, Secretary of the Councii, recognized that the organization of the black stockyard workers wodd be a contentious and potentidy divisive issue.'* in speaking of the unions aiready present in the yards he argued that "[tlhe fact that many of the organizations drew the color line was enough to min the whole proposition."S3Foster and the Council appealed to Amencan Federation of

Labor President Samuel Gompers, who decided that "provided no serious objections were raised by the internationals involved, special chmers shouid be granted to colored workers engaged in trades where they were barred by the regular unions."" Pleased with

Gompers' "Liberal" solution., leaders of the Stockyards Council adopted the policy of establishg separate locals for the black workers."

On the wornen's side of the carnpaign to organize the stockyards, Mary Anderson, a member of the executive board of the Chicago WNL and a League organizer, sat on the Executive Comminee of the Council as representative of the women workers? She and seven other League members assiaed the Council by distributing leaflets to the

Sullivan, "The Women's Part in the Stockyards ûrganization Wok" Lrfe cmdLabor, May 19 18: 102- 104, Red 6, WTUL Publications.

5 1Foster, Wow LLife Has Been Brought hto the Stockyards," 64.

52Wrlliarn Foster, an ex-Wobbly, was an organizer for the An.In Novernber of 1920 he organized the Trade Union Educational League. Foner, Women and the Americun labor Movement, vol. 2, 157, 171, 177.

53Foster, 64.

'%WTUL to Florence Simrns, Mar. 20, 1920,2, Reel8, MDR Papen. 33 workers, assisting the officers of the new locals in holding meetings, and attempting to

raise funds?' In her autobiography, Anderson condescendingiy recaiied one of the

meetings of the black stockyard workers: "One time we had a hall fidl of colored men and

a few colored women. They got very het up over the union.tt58Mer the tira

organizational meeting for women stoclqard workers, League organizer Mary Haney

wrote that "the collard [sic] question is a very hard one" and that it wouid be brought up

at the next Organizers wrestled with the question of htegrating black workers

into the unions of the white stockyard workers. Ofncials involved in organizing the

women., inciuding members of the WTüL, eventually decided to establish three "splendid

locals of women": one for the Polish women, one for the English speaking women, and

one for the Afiican-Arnencan women.* The League appointed Irene Goins, "an

exceptionally tine colored womq" to work under Mary Anderson's direction in

organinng the women stockyard workers of her race!

When the Chicago race riots of 1919 occurred, League members cited as one of their major achievements that "Through her intimate association with the Women's Trade

Union League, she [Goins] was able to serve most effectively in averting some of the

5 8Mary Anderson with Mary Wuislow, Woman af Work (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 195 1). 70.

5%hyHaney or Anderson to MDR, Oct. 3, 1917, Reel24, MDR Papers.

%of Chicago, Annual Report, 5; Sullivan, "The Wornen's Part in the Stockyards Organization," 102,104.

DR to Mrs. Wdard Straight, Feb. 22, 19 18,2, Red 1, NWTUL Papers. 34 threatened tragedies in the terrible race riots in 1919."" Goins and other League members

"made it possible for the women workers in the stockyards colored and white, to stand

together unfluichingiy during the riot S. "63However, while League members quickly

congratulated themselves on having helped create a bond of sisterhood that transcended

racial lines, it must be noted that following the lead of the Stockyards Labor Council and

the American Federation of Labor, League members willingiy acquiesced to the

establishment of "Jim Crow" locals in the aockyards."

Much of the League's conservatism can be attrïbuted to its troubled relationship

with the Arnerican Federation of Labor (An).Histonan Philip Foner argues that from the

begllining the most sipdïcant problem facing the national and local Leagues was their

relationship with the AFL. He contends that initidy, in the hope that the AFL would take

a genuine interest in the organization of women workers, the WïUL made it clear it

would "adhere scrupulously to AFL policies and principles."65When the League was

formed, members adopted a resolution that wherever possible the unions they organized

62Nwnn to Florence Simms, 5. The Chicago race riots of 19 19 were caused by a confluence of events, including cornpetition over housing and jobs, the discriminatory practices of the labor unions, and the subsequent strikebreaking of black workers. Phi@ S. Foner, ûrgmized Labor crmi the Bkk WorRer. 1619-1973 (New York: heger, 1974), 144- 145.

6' 'MNTUL to Florence Skuns, 5.

44 Sullivan, "The Women's Part in the Stockyards ûrganization Work," 104. Afier the Mcan-American stockqard workers had organized into separate black locals, the AFL refùsed to allow than to transfer into the unions of their respective trades. Consequdy, many blacks dropped out of the unions and the number of organizeù black stoclqard workers did not dramatidy inaease. Foner, OrgrnidLabor and the Blaçk Worker? 142.

65Foner, Women Umd ihe Amencan Labor Mouemeni, vol. 1,317; Wfiarn Chafe, Ilw Antericon Woman: Her Changrhg &cial, Economic und Polilical Roles, 1920-1970 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972). 76-79. 35 wouid affüiate with the appropriate An union? The founders' desire to cooperate with the AFL is also apparent in the League's provision to hold their annual conference sirnultaneousiy with the An's convention. League members initiaiiy took encouragement from Gompers' wibgness to dow Mary Kemey O'Sdhvan to announce the formation of the League at the An's 1903 hblicly, Gompers supported the League and prornised to help with its efforts to organize women workers? In reality, however,

Gompers did nothing to advance the unionization of women workers, and did very Little to help the WTUL.~~

Believing that women were transient workers who would leave the workforce upon marriage, Gompers refused to take the plight of women workers seriously, or to recognize the value of helping them achieve organization. He refùsed to aUow League members to be seated as delegates at AFL conventions, or to take action against internationals buring women w~rkers.'~Because of the An's craft union orientation, moa women workers who continued to find employment oniy in unskilled trades, feu outside the organizational pu~ewof the ML." Gompers dso singled out the League's

qoner, Womerz d the Arneri'can Labor Movement, vol. 1.3 17-3 18.

69~ax,The Rising of the Women 102- 106; Foner, Women d the Arnerim Labor Movement, vol. 1, 3 18-323.

7Voner, Women and the Arnencai~Labor Movement, vol. 1,3 l9-322,475; Tax, 7hr Rrsing ofthe Womn, 105- 106.

7 1Foner, Women and the Arnericun Labor Movement, vol. 1,3 19. 56 upper-class rnember~hi~.~While acknowledging that rich women could offer some aid, he argued that "pemianent true bettement of the tives of the working women can be secured when these [working] women achieve it by their own effort^."^

The An's lack of interest in the orgktion of women workers continuaily tnistrated and disappointed the League and Margaret Dreier ~obins."In a convention meeting in 1936 League members bitterly criticized the An, arguing that their organizational difficulties throughout the years had been no "accident". League rnembers asserted that "We have combed the records of the Arnerican Federation of Labor conventions and Executive Board reports for many years without corning across a single section devoted to the national and widespread character of the problem of organizing women workers. "15 Leaguers argued that throughout the years they had "encountered inciifference, sometimes even hostility to the organization of women workers, with many baniers in structure and financial c~st."~~However, the League's financial dependence on the An,and the fact that it did not have its own incorne, prevented League members fkorn severing ties with the

n~wThe fising of the Women? 103.

73 Foner, Wornen and the Ameriam Labor Moverner~t~vol. 1,3 1 8,472 (quote).

74For examples of Margaret Dreier RobVis' hstration sec pages 63,86, 155, 194- 195 of MqE. Dreier, Margarer Dreier Robznr: Her Life. Leuers. and Work (New York: Island Press, 1950).

75 Mernorandum for Organization Cornmittee of Convention of National Women's Trade Union League, 1936,5, Reel 1, NWTUL Papers.

76~bid.,6. Leaguers is a texm used by League actMsts to rder to themselves. n Foner, W'and the AmeRcmt Labor Movement, vol. 1,476-479; Dreier, Murgrnet 37

ïhe An'slack of support forced the WTUL to adopt what Foner so aptly descriies as a "policy of appeasement."78The need to maintain wbat Mebacking the AFL was wiliing to give to the League, constantly compelled League members to moderate their demands and check their ambitions." The AFL's attitude toward the organization of

Afncan-American workers Mercontributed to the League's fdure to heup to its rhetoricai commitrnent to racial equality. In fact, Foner goes so far as to suggea that the great est obstacle p reventing League mernbers Born organizing black wornen workers was

"the same as that confionthg black men: the racism of the AFL and most of its affiliated unions. "'O

For exarnple, in order to gain the allegiance of influentid organizations such as the

National Machinists Union, the An accepted union internationals which in practice excluded black workers &er the tum of the centwy ." By 19 12, the An and its affiliates excluded most African-American workers." While the An did begin to gant charter locals composed entirely of &cm-American workers, these locals tended to be poor

Dreier Robim: Her Lfe, Letters md Work, 57, 1 13. League bding came tkom rich women, male unions, and the AFL- ail of which tended to be unpredictable sources of funds.

78~oner,Women and the Amencm Labor Mowmmi, vol. 1,3 19.

-or example, because the An and Gompers were decidedly arrtisocialist, League leaders wamed socialist mernbers such as Rose Scheiderrnan not to "combine league work with Socialist Party iictMnes." Foner, Women and the American Labor Mowment, vol. 1,476.

8@Faner, Wommid the Amerim Labor Movement, vol. 2,65; Foner, Women und the Arne- Labor Mowment, vol. 1,478.

8 1Arnesen, "Foliowing the Color Line of Labor," 60; Fr- From Slavery to FreL.dm, 282.

=philip Foner, Organized hborund the Bhk Workw, 1619-19 73, 102. 38 substitutes for their more powerful white co~nter~arts.~By the time of the death of An

President Samuel Gompers in 1924, not only had the AFL failed to accept and organize black workers, but the nurnber of federal atFliates excluding African Americans had increased fiom four to eleven." Furthemore, William Green, Gompers1successor, continued his predecessofs practice of accepting and endorsing separate organizations for

Af?ican-American workers. From 1925 to 1927, AFL muai conventions did not discuss a single resolution relating to the organitation of black worker~.~'

To be fair, the racism of the An did not evolve in a vacuum. As Foner points out, many historians regard the fdure of the AFL to foster soiidarity between white and black workers as a "national failure rather than solely a fdure of the white labor movernent."" h search of better economic oppominities, at the turn of the century Afncan Arnericans fiom the South began migrating to the large industrial centers of the northem United

States. However, much to the disappointment of the new migrants employment oppominities proved to be fewer than the nurnber of prospective workers." African-

American men were shut out of most industrial positions, while black women were forced into domestic service. Poor economic prospects, combined with housing shortages and

or an analysis of the weaknesses of Jim Crow unionism see Foner, Organized hhrmd the BImk Worker. 73, 142- 143, 169- 172; Frankh, From Sl;avev foFreedorn. 282,3 8 1; Amesen, "Folowing the Color Line of Labor," 60-62.

sJ~oner,Org~~zid Ldor and the BIack Worker. 1619-1973. 1 68- 169.

85 Ibid., 172.

86 Ibid., 74.

*'~ranklin,From SlQvery to Freedom. 3 1 0. 39 residential segregation, led to the emergence in many Northem cities of large black ghettos.''

A number of factors during the second decade of the twentieth century lead to the mass migration of Afncan Americans northward. The labor depression in the South in

19 14 and the effect of the boll weevil on Cotton crops, combined with uicreased industrial employrnent opportunities in the North and a decline in foreign immigration to make econornic conditions in the North favorable to migration. While black workers initially found employment in most indusiries, the end of World War 1 brought an end to their short iived employrnent Competition over housing, recreational facilities and employrnent opporhuiities led to numerous race riots and an intensification of Jim

Crowisrn.

The sumrner of 19 19 saw the beginning of a penod of intense interracial codict.

Between June and December of 19 19 approxirnately twenty-five race riots erupted nationwide? Employers, unions and the federal governrnent did nothing to alleviate worsening racial tensions. In an attempt to keep labor costs low, employers exploited racial tensions while the federal govemment tacitly endorsed discriminatory practices by turning a blind eye. Further, as hinorian Herbert Hill maintains, although much recent labor history has focused on the racist practices of organized labor, histonans have failed

'%id., 340-342. By 19 18, one donblacks had lefi the South in search of the "land of promise. " 30 to recognize that working class identity developed dong highiy racialized line~.~'HiIl argues that "race was decisive in the formation of the white working class," and that the racism of white workers prevented the development of an interracial labor movernent."

Given this context it is hardly surprising that the WTUL failed to achieve for black women workers what the AF'L refused to make a priority for black male workers. Similady, that the WTUL's rhetoric of equality did not lead to practical change is regrettable, but hardly surprising.

The League's forays into the South further illustrate its unwillingness to challenge biracid unionisrn within the American labor movement. Ln the early 1920s the League sent

Mitdred Rankin, a black worker, and Bertha Funk into the Southem field for the purpose of "nimulating thought and action arnong factory girls of the South. "93 Rankùi and Funk worked with telephone and telegraph operators, waitresses, clerks, tailoresses, laundry workers and teachers, including, as the League organizer pointed out, "colored teachers."

In an attempt to spur organizatioq the organizers held meetings of the Southem women workers. In a letter recounting current League activities, Margaret Dreier Robins noted that "as southem white girls are not accustomed to be out in the evenings, many of these meetings had to be held in the afternoon." This statement reveais the League's predisposition to view the Southern woman worker as the white woman worker. Further,

91 Herbert Hili, "The Roblern of Race in American Labor History," Rems in Americun Histoy 24 (1996): 190-208.

92Hi& "The Problern of Race in American Labor History," 193-195. See also David Roediger's nie Wages of ~itenesxrace 4 the makjng of the Amerium working ch (London: Verso, 1991).

9-'NWTUL to Florence Sirnms, 2. 41 in the same letter Robins wrote that "[wlork in the South naturdy is complicated by the colored question." She communicated that the League had received requests for segregated onices, but adeptly avoided taking a stand on the issue by assertùig that "work has been merely preliminary and as yet no Women's Trade Union League has been established south of Washington in the east and St. Louis in the middle est."^ Her response to the question of segregated locals indicates that she had given very Little thought to the organization of black women workers in the South, and that she was not definitively opposed to the idea of segregated Leagues. She neither condemned nor condoned the suggestion. Despite egalitarian rhetoric, except for these haphazard attempts, until 1926 there were no concerted efforts to organize white or black women workers in the South.

At its 1926 national convention the WTUL voted to extend its work into the

ou th.'^ The League opened an office the foliowing year in Richmond, Virginia, with

Matilda Lindsey as head. Although ultimately the League made few inroads in organking

Southern working women, the League's involvement in the textile strike of 1930 in

Danville, Vuginia allows for an examination of its interaction with Southern black workers. Foiiowing a 10 percent wage cut at the Riverside and Dan River Cotton Miils in

January of 1930, Francis Gorrnan of the United Textile Workers of Arnerica (UTWA) and

95 Draft of Statement for Miss. Christman, Feb. 10, 1927; Southern Educatiod Campaign, Oct. 3-5, 1927, 1, Reel 1, NWTUL Papen. For an explmation of the strike see Foner. Womeii and the Amen'can Labor Movement. vol. 2,24 1-242. 42 Lindsey of the WTUL, helped the workers form Local 1685 of the UTWA.~In

September of 1930, derfruitless negotiations with the management, the union voted ovenvhelmingly to strike. September 2% 4,200 workers, 12 percent of whom were

Mcan-Amencan, went on strike." A memorandum prepared by Gorman and Lindsey reported that black workers had "not yet been organïzed and their average wage is $6.91 for 55 ho~rs."~~They also noted that these wages were substantially lower than the wages offered to white workers." When it came to the question of organizing black textile workers, Lindsey postulated that "[tlhe colored people want to be organized and we expect a way will be found in the fùture to bring this about without any opportunity given to discredit Our movement. "'Oo Leaders were concemed that white workers would be unwilling to accept an interracial union. Leaders involved in the organization resolved the issue through the establishment of a "colored" local of the UTWA-'O1 As with the Chicago stockyard workers, the League accepted and assisted in the establishment of a separate union for the black workers. lu Once again the WTUL supported a lim Crow local which

"Matilda Lindsey to Elizabeth Christman, Mar. 18, 1930; Local Union No. 1685, UrWq undated. Reel4. NWïUL Papers. See also Iacquelyn Dowd Haii, et. al., Like afm: the m&ig of a Sortthcotton mil1 world (Chape1 W: University of North Carolina Press, 1987)- 217-218.

97Mernorandum on Danville Situaîion, Mar. 26,1930,4, Reel4, NWTUL Papas.

%id., 3. White cotton mil1 workers averaged S 13.00 per week.

'O1"~orrnationService," Nov. 29, 1930, Reel4, NWTLTL Papers. was separate, but cenainly not equai.

The Philadelphia WTUL shared the National League's proclivity to accept and assis in the establishment of racidy segregated Iocals. in 1927 the Philadelphia WïUL. was involved in the Waist and Dressmakers' campaign to organize the dressmakers of

Philadelphia. 'O' The League aided the carnpaign by establishg a Citizens' Cornmittee with the purpose of arousing public interest in the plight of the dressmakers. Of Philadelphia's

3,000 dressmakers the predominant groups were white Arnericans, Jewish and Italian women, with a few Polish workers and 600 ecan-American women dressrnaker~.~'~In its attempts to achieve organization of the women, an organizer by the name of Ada

Rosenfelt argued that "the chef problem of the Union during this campaign has been to know how to approach the Amencan girls, the majonty of whom are not in sympathy with the Union." Rosenfelt wrote, "In order to meet the special needs of the situation, the

Union created an Arnencan branch for the Arnencan girls, a Colored branch for the Negro girls and then general meetings where ali the groups the colored, white, lew and

Gentile.. ..corne together to discuss their problerns. "'O5 Mrs. Emma Thompson "who has had years of work among the Negroes, was appointed to do organization work among the colored workers. "lo6 League organizers rationalized the establishment of a racially segregated local on the grounds that it served to make the workers cornfortable with the

IU3~daRoSenfeIt, "Philadelphia Waist and Dressmakers1Union Avert Strike," Li@ rmd Labor, June 1927: 2, Reel7, WTUL hblications. 44 idea of trade unionism Organizers used divisions within the working class to just@

divisions within the Iabor movement.

The League's wiliingness to accept segregated locals reveais its moderate approach

to social change. Reluctant to alienate the An,League leaders were unwilling to assume

a "radical" stance on issues such as racial equality. In a Mernorandum written in 1936,

League officials articulated their attitude toward organktion, as weii as their reasons for

these beliefs, "[wle participate in organization work or strikes partly on our own initiative,

but largely on the invitation or request of local AF of L unions . . . our policy has dways

been one of cooperation and counsel . . . rather than of an atternpt to control or dictate to

these unions. "1°' They argued that because of this rnoderate or conciliatory approach, "We

are probably the only organization whose membership.. .is recognized by the labor

movement as part of it, and which nationally has the standing of a fiatemal organization

within the AFL."'08 This position, which the League felt necessary to its very survivai, was

not "achieved at a stroke or without diniculties." To maintain this position League

members believed that they had to moderate their demands. As they rationalized "[ilt would be no solution.. .for the League, locally or nationally, to come out with blasts

against cr& unionism, sex and race di~crimination."~"Hence, while League members recognized the existence of racial discrimination in the labor movement, they were

unwilhg to commit to anythmg more than an abstract expression of racial equality for

1Of Memorandum for OrgdonCodee of Convention of National Women's Trade Union League, 1936, 1, Reel 1, NWTUL Papen. fear of compromising theû already tenuous position within the labor rnovement.

With a few notable exceptions, the early leadership of the League reflected this moderate approach to social change. l 'O Margaret Dreier Robins and her sister Mary Dreier exempw this policy of moderation practised by the League. Margaret Dreier Robins joined the NY WTUL in June of 1904 and by the foilowing March she was elected president of the New York branch. In 1905 she and her husband, setdement worker

Raymond Robins moved to Chicago where she joined the Chicago branch of the League.

Elected vice president of the Chicago League in 1906, the following year she was elected president of both the Chicago and the National WTULs. She held both poas until 1913, at which tirne she gave up the Chicago League for the national League, remaining president there until 1922. Like her older sister, Mary Dreier joined the NWTUL in 1904. In 1905 she succeeded her sister as president of the NY WTUL, a post she held for ten years.

Throughout their lives both women remained intimately connected with the WTUL, exercising a great deal of influence both during and after their presidencies.

Margaret Dreier Robins and Mary Dreier did not perceive racial discrimination as a problem to be combatted by either the League or thernselves personaiiy. When asked to speak at the Unois Federation of Colored Wornen's Clubs in 19 17, Robins wrote to her father that "1 did not know what to say. " l' l Reflecting on a speech she had given a day before a race riot in Texas, Robins asserted that: "1 spoke on the Arnenca of Tomorrow, and put dl the hope of Mie into it. But 1 could not have spoken so if the Texas story had

Il%nom OReilly stands out as the exception to the rule. For an analysis of her racial attitudes please refa to pages 24-25 of this thesis.

111MDR to Mr. Dreier, Aug. 25, 19 1 7, 1, Rd24MDR Papen. 46 occurred that day. What are we to do? What is the solution?" l l2 Such queries usually constiîuted the extent of Robins' reflections on the race question. While generaily concerned with the plight of Afiican Americans in the United States, Robins never ventured to offer solutions or to use her position of wealth and prominence to improve race relations arnong the working class women to whom she dedicated so much of her Me.

Mary Dreier held similar raciai views. In 1927 Dreier wrote to Robins about the appointment of a League organizer to travel to the South. Dreier explained that:

She has never been South of the Mason-Dixon Line and doesn't know Southem people at dl, but she knows backwoods cornrnunities from here to Alaska . . . about the colored question . . . [slhe says she has no prejudice. I told her, of course, that there was a great deai down there and that she would have to accept it, and couldn't do anything about it. '"

Dreier accepted racial discrimination as an established fact of life in the South.

Margaret Robins aiso faiied to acknowledge that the problems facing Afiican

Americans had anything to do with the white cornmunity. When asked to speak at the

"negro institute of education" in Brooksviiie, Florida in 1930, she wrote to her siaer that

"It will be very interesting . . . but 1 wish they wouid not ask me to speak. I am always so interested in hearing them discuss their own pr~blems.""~mer visiting the fvst Institute on Negro Education in Hemando County, Florida, Robins wrote condescendingly that "1 was ever so happy to receive such a peck of information and also to note the very nice

112MDR to Raymond Robins, hg.26,191 7, Reel55, MDR Papers.

l ''MD to MDR, May 9, 1927, 1,3, Red3 1, MDR Papen.

' %DR to MD, Mar. 2 1, 1930, 1, Reel33, MDR Papers. 37 spirit in the whole aftemoon's meeting."'" Unwilling to confront the reality of white racism, neither Robins nor her sister chose to use their own personal influence or that of the League to challenge the racial hierarchies of the American labor movement.

Lack of funds also harnpered the League's ability to challenge racial hierarchies within the working class. The National Convention of 1920 in Philadelphia voted unanimously to appoint Irene Goins as Secretary of a Department for the Study of the

Needs of Colored Women Workers. However, lack of fùnds prevented the establishment of such a department. '16 This incident represents a cornmon theme in the League's hiaory.

In a resolution written in 1936, to be sent to the AFL, WTUL members pointed out that they had "ofien encountered inciifference, sornetimes even hostility to the organization of women workers, with many ban-iers in structure and hancial cost. ""'Foner argues that

"[tlhe labor movement never gave the League substantial financial assistance." Il8 As a result the League had to rely on hnds contributed by philanthropists such as the Dreier sisters. Consequently, efforts such as the organization of black wornen workers were not backed up by sufficient fùnds.

While the League committed itselfrhetoricdy to racial equality, because of its precaxious position within the labor movement, perpetual lack of funds. conservative leadership, the mood of the country and the American Federation of Labor, the WTUL

"'MDR to MD, Mar. 24, 1930, 2, Reel33, MDR Papers.

''% to Florence Simms, 3. 117Mernorandum for ûrgariization Comnnttee of Convention ofthe NWTLR, 5.

11%Foner, Women and the Amenam LPbor Mowment, vol. 1-304 (quote); Foner, Worneen and the Amerim Labor Movement, vol. 2-65. 48 was able to do very little for black women workers. Given this convergence of circumstances it is hardly nirprising that the League's rhetoric of equality did not led to a concerted attack on the racial aatus quo. Instead, when confionted with the issue of organizing black women workers, League members either ignored their existence, as in the

Shirtwaist Strike of 1909, or accepted and assisted in the establishment of Jim Crow locals, as in the Chicago Stockyards in 19 17. However, while one can cnticize the League for failing to live up to its espoused principles, given the racial chate of the early twentieth century that League members spoke in terms of racial equality at al1 is quite extraordinary. Their rhetoric of equality served to distinguish them from many contemporary reform organizations. That their interest in black women workers may weii have derived largely from their concem that low wages and poor conditions for black women would lower working standards for ail women workers, makes it no less extraordinary. Chapter Three

"They performed a very reai funetion": The New York Women's Trade Union League and Afrkan-Amcriun Women Worke~

While recalling her experiences in the labor movement during the 1930s, Doliie

Robinson, an Anican-Amencan laundry worker Corn New York City, argued that:

aU of us . . . became members of the mew York] Women's Trade Union League because then the ody way we could lem about unions, because we knew nothing.. .was through the Women's Trade Union League . . . They performed a very reai fùnction for young trade unionist women who were active but needed to know how to be active and what to do. So we leamed a great deal through that organization.'

Maida Springer Kemp, a fellow Anican-Amencan garment worker in New York City, similarly declared that: "[Tlhe Women's Trade Union League in New York City offered a forum for working women and an additional point of self respect. Because even though we were a majority, it was a male-dorninated union leadership. So that the Women's Trade

Union League, without ever saying so, atternpted to fill a needmW2

In contrast to the National Women's Trade Union League's m)failure to tive up to its egalitarian rhetoric, by the second decade of the twentieth century the New

1Interview with Dollie Robinson, Tne Twerztieth Cenhny TrdUnion Womcm: Vehiclefor Social Chrmge. The Instihite of Labor and Industrial Relations, The Michigan Histoical CoUections, Bentley HistoricaI Library, University of Michigan, 1978,29. Hereafter?TCTLRK, Robinson Interview.

2~nte~ewwith Maida Springer Kemp, BkkWO~I Oral Histot-y Projecf, Schlesinger Library? Radcliffe College, Cambridge, MW., 1977,71. Hereafter, BWOHP, MSKemp Iirterview. York Women's Trade Union League (NY WTUL,) made a concerted effort to reach out to

Afiican-American women workers. The New York League not only professed its cornmitment to racial equality, but also took direct action to bring black women workers into the trade union fold. Rose Schneiderman, President of the NY WTLn f?om 19 18-

1949, utilized race specitic organizational strategies designed to reach out to black women workers. The New York League's carnpaign to organize New York City's laundry workers, many of whom were Anican-Amencan women, reveaied its willingness to conf?ont and combat racial discrimination within the Amencan labor movement.'

The deplorable conditions of work found in commercial laundries dunng the first halfof the twentieth century made the laundry industry of New York a highly appropriate target for League organizing. Like many other services once perfomed in the home, by the 1 920s laundry work had been transformed into an induanal oc~u~ation.~Until 1916, the industry remained mainiy a "coIiars and cuffs" business, &er which laundries introduced the New Way System in which commercial and family bundles were washed and put through the flat-work ironers.' Customers received their clothing damp, rough-

'In 1930 there were 8,608 Afncan-American lmdry operatives in New York State, 6,73 1 of whom were women. Negroes in the United States, f92û-1932 (Washington: US Government Printing mce, 1969): 307.

4 United States Department of Labor (USDL), Women's Bureau, Womeri Wurkrs in Power Immkies, Bulletin no. 2 15 ( 1947): 1.

Ethel L. Best and Ethel Erickson, A Sz~rveyof hm&ies ami Their Women Workes in 23 Citles. United States Departrnent of Labor, Women's Bureau, Bulletin no. 78 ( 1930): 3. State of New York Department of Labor (NYDL), Hours cmd bùmiings of Women Employed in Paver Launrliies in New York Strde. Bureau of Women in Industq, Bulletin no. 153 (1927): 5. A flat-work ironer is a succession of roiiers, running in concave chests and heated by aeam. CoUan and refen to men's linen. United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Statistics, EmpIoyment of Women in Paver LatmCares in Milwaukee Bulletin no. 122 (19 13): 5 1 dried, or uoned, and paid for it by the Mer this development the laundry indu- enjoyed enormous growth. Between 1909 and 1927 the number of commercial laundries in the United States jumped f?om 3,845 to 5,962.' As the =ope of the industry expanded it created new industrial ernployment opportunities for both white and Afkan-Arnerican women workers. By 1930,240,704 laundry operatives worked in the United States,

160,475 of whom were women, almost one-third or 50,000 of whom were fican-

Arnerican women.

As laundry work industrialized, conditions of work deteriorated. in 1939, Evelyn

Macon, an Anican-Amencan laundry worker ftom Brooklyn, New York, declared that

"Slavery is the only word that could describe the conditions under which we ~orked."~

Maida Springer Kemp described the laundry as an industry in which "people felt degraded and hop el es^."'^ hdeed, the working conditions of the laundry industry were far from desirable. In the first place the washing and ironing machines, as well as the damp

%YDL, Hoirrs adEanings of Women Employed Ni Pmw ho&ies. 5; Best and Erickson, A Surwy of launrines. 2

'B~Sand Erickson, A Surwy of Luudies. 2.

8Stutistid Abstrwt of thUS 1935 (Washington: US Govment Printing Oflice, 1935): 64; Jean Collier Brown, ?he Negro Woman WorRer. United States Department of Labor. Women's Bureau, Bulletin no. 165 (1938): 4. in 1930 there were 58,080 black laundry operatives in the United States, 10,534 were male and 47,546 were fernale. Negroes m the United States, 1920-1932, 303.

9~nnBanks? ed. Fi& Person Amerka (New York: Med A Knopc 198O), 126. clothing, created a hot, humid and moist environment." That the workers had to stand most of the day, often on cernent noors, handling dirty, wet or hot clothing, made the work extremely fatiguing.12 AS one woman expressed it, "the work is so hard and so exhausting that you seldom find a woman who has been able to work long at the trade.""

Moreover, laundry work required the handling of various chemicals such as bleaching agents, chloride, caustic soda, ammonia, and acetic acid. '' The continual use of such chemicais, on top of the heat and humidity generated by the laundering processes, created a number of health hazards. Doilïe Robinson reported that her CO-workersat the Colonial

Laundry commonly complained of rheumatism and arthntis. l5

While conditions of work in commercial laundries were generally poor, conditions varied across different positions in the plant. Under the broad heading of productive workers those employed in actual laundering processes, feu the markers, sorters, washers, flat-work ironers, hand ironers, press operators and sorters and checkers. l6 Markers undid

Il USDL, Employment of Women in Power Lardes in Milwmkee, 3 5; Best and Enckson, A Sz~rveyof Power hmd7e.s. 18-22; USDL, Women Workrs ~nPower Lm&es. 54.

12~estand Erickson, A Survey of Pawer Luumkies, 24-25.

"second Biennid Convention Handbook, 1909, 16, Red 1, Women Trade Union League Publications (Hereafter WTUL Publicati011~)~Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. Cambridge, Mass. (Mcrofiim Edition of the Papers of the WTüL and its Principal Leaders).

14 USDL, Empfoyment of Women in Pnver L,amhes in Miiwaukee, 40-46.

"TCTUW, Robinson InteMew, 53.

1%ertha Nienburg and Bertha Blair, Facors Aflecting Wages in Paver Lmmhes. United States Department of labor, Womm's Bureau, Bulletin no. 143 (1 936): 26; USDL, Women Worhrs in Power Mes,9. Productive workas constituted roughly the-fourths of the worl6orce and were overwhelrningiy women workers. NYDL, Hours COldEamntgs of Women Employed in Pmer h&es. 8-9. the bundles of soiled clothes, marked thqand transferred them to the appropriate location in the plant. Washers then monitored the washing advities. Upon completio~ pullers removed the wet laundry and placed it in a basket to be trderred to the next location. Markers were usudy women, washers men. l7 Articles of clothing then went either to the tumbter, the flat-work ironer, or the hand ironers. Hat-work ironers, who constituted the largest group of women employed in the indu-, received sheets, pillow cases, and other such items, which they fed into the feeding apron of flat-work irons. l8

Press operators ironed pyjamas and housedresses, while hand ironers ironed by hand aiI the rniscellaneous pieces that could not be handled by the presses. Fhally, sorters and checkers assembled ail the items to be returned to the customer. Black women found work prïmarily on the flat-work irons, as pressers or as hand ir~ners.'~

Laundry workers universdy regarded flat-work ironing as the least desirable position within the plant. According to both scientinc studies and personai observations,

"USDL, Women Workers in Power Lar&*es. 9- 1 1; NYDL, Hmrs wdEm~ings of Women EmpIoyed in Pmer Larnhes, 8-9.

18NYDL, Hotirs and Eanrngs of WmnEmpuyed in Paver Laundifes. 8-9; USDL, Women Workers in Pnver h&es, 9- 1 1. The 1930 survey reveds that one-haif of ail black wornen, cornparecf to not quite two-fifths of al white women, were employed on the Bat-work irons. The next Iargest group of white women worked as markers or sorters, whiie the second largest group of black women worked as pressen and hand ironers. Best and Enckson, A St/ryey of Lauraar,es, 9-10.

1%mployees who did not £àiî under the heading of productive workers were superintendents, routemen, power plant and mechariid workers, and office employees. Routemen, power plant and mechanical workers and superimendents were in most cases men, while office employees were udywomen. NYDL, Hwsmd Eanimgs of Women Empoyed in Power Lmmdies. 9; USDL, Women WorRers in Power Latdes, 1 1; Nienburg and Blair, Factors Affecfnlg Wuges in Power Laundries. 25; Besi and Erickson, A Stwvey of Lam&ess, 1O. the temperature and humidity at the flat-work irons considerably exceeded that elsewhere in the plant.20Doue Robinson descrïbed flat-work ironing as the hardest job "because it was hot. You see, you were gettïng the steam from the mangle . . . you were working in

106 and 126 degree heat ail the ~ie."~'Because of the nature of the work, employers usually started the youngest and most inexperienced workers on the flat-work irons."

However, a Women's Bureau weyconducted in 1930 ascertained that one-half of al1 black women in the laundry industry were employed on the flat-work irons, regardless of the duration of their emp1oyment.'j

In addition to being the lest desuable position within the plant, flat-work ironers received the lowest wages. The Women's Bureau survey of 1930 found that in eastem cities black female flat-work ironers earned $12.80 per week, while markers and sorters, the highest paid positions, earned $16.30 per week. The second largest group of white women in the industry worked as markers and sorters. Very few black women, however, gained access to these positions.24

'%est and Enckson, A Szmq of Larhes, 18-2 1.

21TCTUW, Robinson Interview, 52.

22 Best and Erickson, A Szrrvey of Luudies. 92.

23 This meyincluded 290 power laundries in 23 &es in 17 States. The nurnber of women and men workers in the survey was 24,337, of whom 19,758 or 81 percent were women. Black women compriseci 26.7 percent of the women workers. Best and Erickson, A Szrrvey of LûrnaCaies. 9- 1O. The Women's Bureau was established in the Department of Labor in 1920.

24Best and Erickson, A Survqy of Lumd-ies, 9-10, û4,92. From a 1927 weyof 5 13 laundries in the State of New York, it was determineci that flat-work ironers earned the least. NYDL, Hmrs cmd Eàrniings of Women Empoyed in Power Lounrines. 30. 55 On top of poor working conditions, long hours and Iow wages characterized the laundry indu-. As Evelyn Macon observed, "At least --four houn a week it was speed up, speed up, eating lunch on the fly, perspiration dropping from every pore, for alrnoa ten houn per day? A Women's Bureau agent described the workday as "long, burdensome, and unre~ieved."~~Women's Bureau agents noted in 1927 that "New York

City laundries show a strïking proportion of women employed beyond the maximum hours permitted by law. "" Robinson recalled that "We were not organized at that time, thus we were working 1 think as many as seventy-two hours a week for six dollars a ~eek."~~

Commercial laundries were aiso notorious for their low wage scales. As Robinson recalled, "the wages were unbelievably low, unbelievably. Existence was alrnost impossible, 1 mean jua impossible . . . The six dollars you eamed had to purchase meds and everything."lg While laundry workers generally received low wages, significant wage differentials also existed between women and men and across ditrent regions, races and positions. A 1934 survey of 348 power laundries in 22 cities detennined that white male laundry workers always earned higher wages than white and black fernaie laundry workers and Anican-Arnerican male laundry workers." Of the women in the laundry industry

'"~sDL, Women Workws in Power L,amkies, 52.

'7NYD~,Harrs mid Earnings of Women in Power Laun&ies. 17, 19. At the time of the nwey the legai maximum workweek was 54 hours.

28TCTUW, Robinson Interview, 1.

%id., 45.

'@Nknburg and Blair, Factors Affecting Wuges in PmrLmrhes. 14.3 1-34. 56 surveyed in 1930, median eaniings for white women were $16.10 a week, while for black women median earnhgs stood at $8.85 a week? in Chicago in 1930 median earnings for white women were $16.65 per week, while for black wornen they were $ 12.45 per week.'*

ui addition to low wage scales, many laundry employers detennined weekly pay by questionabie methods. Many women received no pay for overtime, or experienced excessive deductions for absences." Mae Massie Eberhardt, an Afiican-Arnerican laundry worker in New Jersey, complained that for an absence during the work week she lost both her bonus and three hours pay. Perceptively, she noted that "[tlhis is penalizing me twice for one thing."'" Mer conducting a study in 1929 of the conditions experienced by black laundry workers, Mary Adams of the Daily Worker reported: "They are never sure of what's in their pay envelopes. They are constantly docked and never told for what reason. "j5

Despite poor working conditions, long hours and low wages, in 1930 almost

50,000 Afi-ican-Amencan women worked in commercial laundries in the United States.

l est and Enckson, A Smyof lmrhes. 63-64

-. "USDL, Women Workers in Pnver Mes,25.

"htewiew with Mae Massie Eberhardt, Bkk Wonm Oral History Projecr, 1979,264. Hereafier, BWOHP, MMEbertiardt Interview.

"Mary Adams, "Pay for Negro Laundry Slaves: Girls, Women Driven Merdessly," Dmty Worker. Mar. 8, 1929, in Ine Bhck Workec A Docume~mryHistoryfiom Colonial ïhesIO the Present, Philip Foner and Ronald Lewis, eds. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981). 171. 57 While the larger community considered work in a power laundry one of the least desirable industrial occupations, to black women it represented one of the few industries willing to employ their labor on a large scale. When asked why she "chose" to work in a laundry,

Dollie Robinson explained it was "The oniy job I could find at that the."j6 She aiso explained that although her fnend Noah Walter had a coliege degree, "there was no work anyplace, so I'm sure that he probably worked in the laundry.""

By the 1930s, agricultural labor and domestic se~cework still employed nine of every ten Afiican-Arnerican women ~orkers.~'Black women in agriculture working as sharecroppers made on average $4 1.67 a year.3gDomestic se~ceoffered conditions marginaüy better than those available to sharecroppers, but these were still quite dismal.

Of 2 1 1 wornen who had previously worked as domestic servants, the Women's Bureau survey of 1930 reponed that 186 preferred workùig in a laundry* Laundry work gave these women better pay, shorter hours and no Sunday work? Furthemore, during the depression years, black women had to aniggie to retain jobs in occupations which they had previously dorninated. As white women workers were pushed out of industriai occupations, they began to replace black women in domestic service. As a consequence,

'~~CTUW.Robinson Interview, 1.

'8~rown,The Negro Woman Wor&er, 2; United States Department of labor, Wornen's Bureau. Women ot Work: A Cenhvy of l~zdwfridChange, Bdetin no. 16 1 (1939): 60.

'g~rown,fie Negro WomWorker, 7.

%est and Erickson, A Szrrvey of h&es, 155.

'"Ibid.. 98-99. 58 unemployment rates for &cm-American women were sigrilficantly higher than those of white women workers." In New York City the black unemployrnent rate nood at double to triple the white unemployment rate." Even when black women were able to retain employrnent in low level, unskilled work such as domestic service, they were paid sisnificantly lower wages than those received by white women workers in the same occupations.

Given the bted employment options available to black wornen workers during the 1930s, they considered work in a commercial laundq to be one of the more desirable occupations. Confkonted with the alternatives of unemployment or domestic service, most black women preferred to work in a commercial laundry. As one Women's Bureau agent remarked, for Afncan-Amencan women "Even work in a power laundry is progress. ""

Because large numbers of black women preferred laundry work over their other employment options, the majonty of Afncan-American women laundry workers remained unorganized .&

42Foner, Women and the Amencm Labor Movement: From World Wm I to the Preser~t, vol. 2 (New York: The Free Press, 1980), 260-262.

"Thomas Kessner, FiorelIo H. Lo Gt~ardaaM' the Making of Mdnt New York (New York: McGraw-HiIl Pubiishing, 1989), 372.

W Foner, Women and the Amen'can Labor Movement, vol. 2,26 1-262.

?JSDL Women ot Work: A Cenfur~of 1.dChge, 6 1.

&Due to the racist and sexkt practices of labor organizations such as the An,black women did not have a tradition of labor organizllig within the maïnstream Arnnican labor movernent. This is not to Say, however, that black women did not organize. Recogrizhg the benefits of collective action, Afncan-American women workers formed their own organLations outside of mainsueam unions. Rosaiyn Terborg-Pm argues that tbrough collective survival stratepies, black women were able to build union-like associations in even the moa "unorganizable" jobs. Given the circumstances oftheir employment, African-American women stood to benefit subsüuitiaily from unionization and unlike the WTUL as a whole, the NY WI'UL made serious, although ultimately wuccessfid atternpts in the 1920s to achieve this. Its readiness to acknowledge and deal with the unique problems facing A.ûican-American women workers is evident in its campaign to organize New York City's female laundry force. It is worthwhile to note that at the tum of the century the composition of the laundry force did not include a large number of black women. In 1900 the workforce consisted mainly of Irish Unmigrant women and men." As the Irish achieved greater occupational mobility, other, more exploited groups of workers, including Afncan-

Americans replaced them. By 1930, 58,080 black laundry operatives worked in the United

States, 47,546 of whom were women." New York State had the greatest nurnber of black laundry operatives with 8,608 in total, 6,73 1 of whom were women.'lg Leaders of the NY

WTUL, most notably President Rose Schneiderman, drew attention to the discruninatory treatment these women received, as weli as the pressing need to help them achieve

For a Mer explanation see Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, "Survivai Strategies among Afiican- Amaican Women Workers: A continuing process," Womm? Work and Protesî: A Centuty of US. Women's La60r History, ed. Ruth Millanan (Boston: Routledge, 1985): 139- 155.

47Carde Turbin, Working Women of Cotlar City: Gedr,Ch, ond Comrniiy in Troy, New York, 18&1-1886 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 4-5.

"Negrws in tkUnited S~es.i9tû-f93.?. 3 03.

49Tbid., 307. This consatutes roughly onequarter of the woMorce. 60 unionization.

h April of 1923, the International Laundry Workers Union (ILWU), an atfiliate of the American Federation of Labor (An),asked leaders of the New York Women's Trade

Union League if they would be willùig to help organize the family ironers, a branch of the women laundry workers. 'O As reported in the League's monthly work surnmary, " [tlhe

Laundry Workers have asked that we take charge of organizing the famly ir~ners."~'In

New York City in November of 1923, the International Laundry Workers Union, with the aid of the N'Y WTUL,chartered Union Local 284, composed of the Hand Ironers,

Markers and Assorters. Local 284 was the first organization of laundry workers composed primarily of black ~omen.'~The League employed a black woman Iaundry worker by the name of Delia Haren, to begin the organkational process among the women. By January of 1924, Haren, of whom it was reported "is doing splendid work," had reached over 400 fernale Iaundry ~orkers.*~When finds to pay Miss Haren had been exhausted, Rose

Schneiderman embarked on an intensive letter carnpaign to solicit additional knds to pay her salary. Schneiderman wrote to potential contributors that "[tlhere are at least 2000 women concerned in this movement and 1 feel that the trick can be tumed if we have the

SO"~eportof the work of the WTüL,'' Apd 1923,3, Red 2, Records of the New York Women's Trade Union League, (Hereafler NY WTUL Records), New York State Labor Libra~y,New Yok N.Y. (Microfilm Edition of the Papers of the WTLTL and its PrLicipal Leaders); "Frorn March 1922 to March 1923," (typed report), 1, Reel3, NY WTUL Records.

51"~eportof the Work of the WTLL," Dec. 1923, 1, Reel2, NY WTLTL Records.

5Z'~eportof the Work of the WTüL," Nov. 1923,1, Ree12, NY WïUL Records.

'"'~e~ortof the Work of the WKJL,," Jan. 1924, 1, Reel3, NY WTUL Records. 6 1 means of contiming Miss Haren on the job."" She confessed herself to be "rather panic- micken at the thought that we may have to let her go.""

Schneiderman aiso pointed out that most of the workers were Afiican-American women- In the same letter Schneiderman asserted that "80% of the women in the hand laundries are colored, and 1 am sure 1 need not point out to you what it would mean to have a strong and powerful organization of colored women . . . how that would react on the psychoiogy and status of other colored women employed in industry. "56 Schneiderman hoped that the organization of black women laundry workers could spur the unionization of other groups of Afiican-Amencan women workers. Far fiom shying away from the race issue, the New York League vigorously emphasized the need to organize "the very lowest-paid and most exploited" of al1 women workers?' This stance served to distinguish the NY League fiom the discriminatory practices of the An, and the half-hearted efforts on the part of the NWTUL.

The deep concem that the League, and particularly Rose Schneiderman had for the plight of black women laundry workers derived largeiy from their recognition that this group of workers fell outside the purview of most other unionization efforts. In an organization report of 1925, League rnembers acknowledged that "[olrganinng shows

ose Schneidemian to Mn. Albert Erdman, Feb. 14, 1924, Red 1 1. NY WTUL Records.

'%ose Schneidemuin with Lucy Goldthwaite, All for One (New York: Paul S. Ericksson, 1967), 2 10; RS to Mrs. Albert Erdman, Feb. 14, 1924; RS to Mrs. Kenneth Walser, Feb. 14. 1924, Red 1 1, NY WTUL Records.

""Organization Repoq" 1925,6, Reel3. NY WTUL Records. 62 very slow results in the groups with which we work, for of course, we devote Our energies

to the very lowest-paid and most exploited, because we feel that the established unions do

not need Our assistance excepting in crisis such as strike~."~~The League was genuinely

committed to helping the downtrodden, to lending aid to those groups of women workers

who did not receive support fiom the unions of their trades. It recognized that black

women laundry workers had "about the most tembly [sic] working conditions of any

group of women workers, " and that " orgaMzation is absolutely essential if proper

standards are to be obtained in that indu~tr~."~~The unionization of the laundry workers

was one of the main organizational priorities of the New York League, one which if achieved would "be counted arnong [our] great organization a~hievernents."~~

By tying the plight of the black women laundry workers to the interests of the

Anican-Amencan community, Schneiderman attempted to solicit the black cornrnunity's support for the League's organizational efforts. In April of 1924, Schneiderman convinced the Urban League to donate a room for the purpose of setting up an empioyment office for women laundry ~~eratives.~~After sorne initial success, the employment office failed to

h rom March 1922 to 1923," (typed report), 1; "Organization Report 1925," 6, Reel3, NY WTUL Records.

60"~eportof the Work of the WïüL," Feb. 1924, 1, Reel2, NY WTUL Records.

6'"~eportof the Work of the WTUL," April 1924, 1, Reel2, NY WTUL Records; "Report, March 1922 to March 1923," 2, Reel3, NY WTUL Records. It is interesting to note that Arthur C. Holden of the NY Urban League wrote to RS that "1beliwe that Colored women will probably be more eagly organized than men."Arthur C. Holden to RS, Mar. 26, 1924, Reel 1 1, NY WTUL Records.. receive many workers, leading the Urban League to withdraw the use of the r~orn.~*

Throughout this period the NY WTUL continued its attempts to organize the women laundry workers. In addition to raising funds, League members held weekly meetings of the newly formed union, secured locations to hold meetings, distributed circulars, canvassed the laundries, and encouraged students corn the New York School of Social

Work to aid the laundry worker~.~~Despite these efforts organization floundered among women laundry operatives. Lack of Nnds contributed ro the organizational dSculties, but

Schneiderman argued that the attitude of the men's Local 280 impeded the organization of black women laundry workers. Because the men's Local 280 "gave a half-hearted support to organiPng the women, refushg . . . to take them into their own Union," Local 284 soon fell spart."

The failure of Local 284 troubled Schneiderman deeply, as she acknowledged:

"Your President is now thoroughly convinced that the women should never have been chartered as a separate local but should be an integrai pan of the Shirt Lroners' Union. The

62"~eportof Work of NY WTUL," Jan. 1925, Red 3, N'Y WTUL Records; Schneidermaq dlI for One,2 12-2 13. According to League records, the office Medbecause of too few phone calls 6om ernployers or workers

""~eportof the Work of the WTUL," Oct. 1923, 1; "Report of the Work of the WTUL," Nov. 1923. 1; "Report of the Work of the WTUL," Dec. 1923, 1; "Report of Work of the WTUL, " May 1924, 1, Reel2, NY WTWL Records; "From March 1922 to March 1923," (typed report), Red 3, NY WTUL Records.

64Local 280 was an organization of the Men's Shirt Ironers. Minutes of the Reguiar Meeting of the WTLJL, Mar. 2, 1925, and "Report of Work of the NY WTUL for Feb. 1925," Reel3, NY WTUL Records. Harry Morrison, secretary-treasurer of Local 280, admitteci that " nothing much can be accomplished until the Hand Ironers of Local Union No. 280 show a better spirit of Umonism and corne to the assistance of Local Union No. 284." Harry Morrison to Rose Schneiderman, Mar. 12, 1 924 Reel 1 1, NY WTUL Records; Schnademan, All for One. 2 12 men would then have had to bring them into theu organization in order that agreements

codd be successfÙliy made for both men and ~ornen."~'Schneiderman also noted that the

men were told "in no uncertain terms of their part in the fadure of the local" and that they were "stunned," but that "we felt it did them a world of good to know that we have their n~mber."~~She concluded dismdy that "[tlime, effort, money and many sleepless nights

of worry for the League organizer have featured a practicdy fhitiess effort to keep women laundry workers organized. "67

In 1925, the Trade Union Committee for the Organization of Colored Workers was f~rmed.~'Soon thereder, the newly formed Committee "cded on the League

Organizer with a view to obtaining cooperation in co~ectionwith the Laundry

~orkers."~~Men's Shirt Lroners, 290 Stûun Laundry Workers, the Trade Union

Cornmittee for Colored Workers, and the NY WTUL formed a Joint Organizùig

Cornmittee to help black women laundry workers achieve unionization. " Schneiderman

65"~eport ofworlg" Feb. 1925, 1, Red 3, NY WTUL Records.

67"~epo~March 1922 to March 1923 ,"Red 3, NY Wnn Records.

68Frank Crossvarth, an active member of the black cornmunity, Socialkt Party and labor movernenk forrned the Trade Union Cornmittee for the Organization of Colored Worken. The Comrniftee dedicated itseifto orgdgblacks hoestablished unions. It was succeeded in 1934 by the Harlem Labor Co~ILmittee,out of which grew the Negro Labor Comminee. Philip Foner, The Bkk Worker: A Dolcumentmy Hisq598.

69"~eportof Work of the WTLJL," June-Sept. 1925, Reel3, NY WTüL Records.

'O"~eportof Work" Sept-Oct. 1925, 1, Reel3, NY WTUL Records. soon becarne Chaimian of this ~ommittee.~'Among other activities the League secured speakers, drafted circulars, distributeci iiterature, and secured meeting places for the workers? Recognizing that Anican Arnericans comprised a large proportion ofthe workforce, the League concentrated on the "colored" members of the workforce, holding meetings at the "Colored YWC4" and securing prominent black spokespeople to address the workers." Schneiderman wrote in November of 1926 that "Plans are on the way for seeing influentid colored people for [the] purpose of starting a general organizational

~am~ai~n."'~However, lack of fùnds forced the Trade Union Cornmittee for the

Organization of Colored Workers to discontinue its assistance to the laundry workers. In response Schneiderman remarked that "once more the whole job is on the shoulders of the

Women's Trade Clnion League." She nonetheless insisted that "[tlo aop now wodd be criminal, for no group of workers needs trade-unionism more than the laundry workers.

In 1927 A Joint Cornmittee of Shirt Ironers, Steam Laundry Workers, the

Engineers' Locals, and the NY WTUL undertook a renewed effort to set up a union of laundry ~orkers.'~Schneiderman chaired the comminee and employed Biil Altman, an

'' "ûrganization Report 1925," Reel3. NY WïUL Records.

""~r~anizationReport for Nov. 1926 of WTUL," Nov, 1926, 1, Reel3, NY WTUL Records.

7S"OrganizatonReport 1925," 4, Red 3, NY WTUL Records.

76 SchneidmAli for One, 213; "Report of Organization Wok" Jan. 1927,2, Red 3, N'Y WTUL Records; Annual Report, March 1, 1926 to March 1, 1927, 1-2, Red 22, NY WTUL Records. 66 organizer for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), to work with the women laundry operatives? The League aiso convinced the International Laundry

Workers Union (ILWU) to assia them in raising funds for a headquarters, and to pay the salary of an ~r~anizer.'~The League secureci a store on Third Avenue and 95th Street- in the hart of the laundry Significant numbers of workers began to join the union when, in February of 1928 one of the key organizers, a driver from the Giant Laundry, was fired." To protest the firing, dong with workers in three other laundries, the employees of the Giant Laundry went on strike. Of 300 striking workers approximately one-half were Afncan-American w~rnen.~'The New York League worked around the clock holding strike meetings, picketing with the workers, and raising fùnds for strike relief The League published a report in its monthly bulletin urging members to donate to the strike: "A group of colored women laundry workers are on strike in support of a number of the men drivers . . . Such courage as is being developed among the rank and fiie of laundry workers has a very special signincance to the organizers who realize that the laundry workers are at last waking up. ""

n"~eportof Organizaîion Woriq" Jan. 1927,2, Red 3, NY WTUL Records; Annual Report, Mar. 1, 1926- Mar. 1, l927,2, Reel22, NY WTIJL Records.

78 Schneidemian, Allfor One. 2 13.

79 II Organization Report," Jan. 1928, 1, Reel3, NY WTUL Records.

""~r~anizationReport for Jan. 1928," 1; "Report of Organization Wo*" Feb. 1928, 1, Reel3, NY WTUL Records.

82Monthfy Bzdletin, June 6, 1927, 1, Reel8, WîüL Publications. 67

Despite this optimism, the saike ended unsuccessfuily four weeks later." As

League leaders pointed out, some men "carr(ied] on private negotiations with the employers through the entire period of the suike," with no regard for the fate of the women laundry workers who had walked out in support of the male drivers? In a scathing critique of the strike, League members reported, "The wornen proved themselves seasoned fighters. They were much more courageous and more wihg to do the picketing than the men and none of the women deserted the ranks - the break in the strike came from the highest paid men."'' Schneiderman lamented "It was pitiful to see the women going back beaten. The men, of course, were able to hold their own. ""

Schneideman also criticized the International Laundry Workers Union. Before the strike the LW had promised to assist the striking workers, a promise it failed to keep.

As Schneideman bitterly wrote, "[hlere was an international union with its secretary- treasurer in Troy, New York, and he was not even interested in coming to a meeting of the strikers to encourage them to organize."" Schneidemüui reasoned that "the

International knows that ifNew York were properly organized it would swarnp the whole

~ntemational."~'This was not an uncornmon problem for the League. At a convention in

""~e~onof Organization Wodq" March and April 1928, 1, Red 3, NY WTUL Records.

""~e~ortof Organizaton Worlq" March and Apd 1928, 1, Reel3, NY WTUL Records.

86 Schneiderrnan, Al2 for One. 2 14.

87 SchneidmAII for One, 2 14-2 15; "Report of Organùaton Work," March and April, 1928,2, Reel3, NY WTiLTL Records. 68 1936, League members recounted that throughout the course of their organizational work

"[wle have [had] appeals fiom unorganized women worken for aid in organizing and we find ourselves confronted by locais or intemationals which are either hostile or indifrent to the inclusion of women in their ranks. "" League members asserted that " [w]e hd ourselves involved in ditFculties arising out of jurisdictions of craft unions." FinaIiy,

Leaguers concluded that they had "encountered inMerence, sometimes even hostility to the organization of women w~rkers."~Schneiderman lamented that she was "heartbroken at the disastrous end to the many years' aruggle to put an organimtion of the laundry workers on the map."g'

Schneiderman also conceded that the slow Pace of organization resulted fiom the fact that the League worked with the "very lowest-paid and most exploited of all workers. The nature of laundry work itself made it diacult for the workers to find either the time or money to organize. As Schneiderman recognired: "Their wages were tembly low and their hours very long . . . They had no money for union dues and no the for meetings dertheir long ho~rs."~'Evelyn Macon recalled that afier a long day in the laundry she would "flop across the bed and sieep two or three hours, then get up and cook

- 8%ernorandurn for Organization Comrnittee of the Convention of the NWTUL, 1936,3, Reel 1, NWTUL Papen, Schlesuiger Library, Radcliffe Cokge, Cambridge, Mass. ('Microfilm Edition of the Papas of the WïTJL and its Principal Leaders).

90 Ibid., 3,6.

''"~e~ortof Organization Woriq" March and April 1928,2, Red 3, NY WTUL Records.

gz"OrganizationReport," l925,6, Reel3, NY WTUL Records.

93~chneidermanAl/ for One. 2 11. 69 and fd back into bed irnmediately &er eating."% Such gruehg work days made evening organizational activities dificult .

Employer intimidation, threats of job loss and monetary punishments aiso served as obstacles to unionization. Schneiderman explained that "because of the exploitation, the long hours, the low wages and the fear of discharge by ruthless employers, the process of organization has been slow."g5In the Colonial Laun- where Dollie Robinson worked,

"mistreatment by foreman" constituted one of the wornen's principal grievances. Robinson explained "[tlhe supervisors were very nasty" and very "abusive. They'd get very loud and raise their hands." To keep the workers in their "place," the foreman would make the women stay at home because of smd infractions.% Schneiderman argued that "[tlhe bad conditions are an established fact, recognized by the laundry workers; their helplessness has penetrated deep down, and this is probably the great drawback -- a psychological

94Banks, First Persort Americq 126.

95 Rose Schneiderman, "The Women's Trade Union League Co&onts the Srniaiion of Women Workers Today," undated speech, 2 Red 2, Rose Schneiderman Papm, New York University, New York N.Y. (Microfilm Edition of the Papers of the WTUL and its Principal Leaders).

%TCTUW, Robinson Interview. 45, 5 1-52, 59. 70 inability to reaiize that anything so bad cmbe bettered.ltg7As a consequence, despite the many efforts of the New York Women's Trade Union League, black women laundry workers in New York City were unable to achieve unionkation before the 1930s.

"~nnual Report, March 1, 1926 to March 1, 1927,4 Reel22. NY Records. Chapter Four

"It was like the saivation:" The Organization of New York City's Laundry Workers and the New York Women's Trade Union Lugue

Florence Rice, an African-Amencan laundry worker in New York City, compared conditions in the laundry industry before and fier the workers achieved unionization:

I was in the laundry industry before the wons were organizing there- Twelve dollars -- Oh God, you had to be there a? seven and 1 know you didn't get off at six and you were forced to work Saturdays. I wasn't in there too long before the unions came about. The Laundry Workers Union. It was like the salvation. It certainly got better after the union came in. We got better wages, worked a certain amount of hours.'

The successful organization of the laundry workers in the 1930s transformed the workplace for &cm-American women workers.

While the New York Women's Trade Union League had anempted valiantly throughout the 1920s to organize New York City's fernale laundry operatives, not until the

1930s did conditions favor success. As a consequence of numerous obstacles to unionization, as weiI as the fact that racial and semal discrimination narrowed the employment op portunities available to Afican- Amencan women, organization in the laundry induqcould be achieved in only the most favorable settings, where labor legislation and intluential allies supported such organizationd efforts. In the mid-1930s such conditions existed in New York City.

I Florence Rice, "It takes a Whiie to Realize That It 1s Discriminabon," Bkzck Women in Amencar A Dm~mentmyHisto~, ed. MaLerner (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972): 276. in May of 1933, Governor Herbert Lehrnan appointed Rose Schneideman to the minimum wage advisory committee for New York State. Soon thereafier, Schneiderman announceci that "a series of regional meetings to gather data on the establishment of a minimum wage in the laundry industry will be held...in the YWCA Branch for the

~olored."' A month later, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins appointed Schneiderman as the only female member of the Labor Advisory Board of the National Recovery

Administration (NRA).' Given Schneiderman's long battie to organize laundry workers, not surprisingly the first minimum wage board she created was for the laundry industry4

That summer, the labor board established a minimum wage of 3 1 cents an hour for laundries in the New York City area, and 27 and one-half cents for laundnes in the remainder of the state.

Schneiderman hoped that once the laundry workers recognized they had

'"Laundry Inqujr to Begin Friday," New York Times? May 23, 1933 : 1 1. ose Schneideman, "The WTUL ConfTonts the Situation of Women Workers Today," undated speech, 2, Reel2, Rose Schneiderman Papers (Hereafter RS Papers), New York Univemty, New Yok N.Y. (Microfi Edition of the Papen of the WïUL and its Principal Leaders); 'Washington Picks Recovery Board and Chief Experts," New York Times, June 20, 1933: 1. Frances Perkins was the tim woman cabinet member in U.S. history. She was Secretary of Labor and sat in the New Deal government. Foner, Women and the Amencan Mot-Mouement: From WorM WmI ro Present? v01.2 (New York: The Free Ress, 1980), 378.

4Ibid., 2. o ose Schneiderman with Lucy Goldthwaite, Al?fw One (New York: Paiil S. Ericksson, 1967), 195,204; "ûrganization Report," Jan. 8, 1934, Red 3, Records of the New York Women's Trade Union League (Hereafter NY WTUL Records), New York State Labor Library, New York, N.Y.(Microfilm Edition ofthe Papen of the WTüL and its Principal Leaders); Mary Elizabeth Pidgeon, EmpIoyed Women Ursder ARA Codes, United States Department of labor, Women's Bureau, Bulletin no. 130 (1935): 83-87. 73 governmental backing, they would hdthe courage to strike against their exploitative working conditions. Things worked out exady as she had hoped. "Encouraged by all these efforts in their behalf," she happily recounted "the laundry workers in New York and

Brooklyn, last winter, went on saike when they found their employers violahg codes as well as minimum wage rates. "'Ecstatic now that she could use her position to represent black women laundry workers at the Regional Labor Board, Schneideman exclaimed:

1 wonder ifyou know what this means, particularly to the colored workers, who, for years, have been made to feeI, and have felt themselves to be at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. 1 wonder ifyou realize what it meant for these girls to have the League Organizer go with them, white and colored, to the Regional Labor Board and plead their cause, stand with them on the picket Line during the cold winter morn.ings.'

In the 1930s, Schneiderman was finally in a position to help black women laundry workers achieve unionization.

Workers at the Independent Laundry in Brooklyn, New York were the fist to cite

NIL4 violations and go on strike? Two organizers fiom the League aided the strikers and, with the help of the Regional Labor Board, the strike ended successfblly within a week.

The workers received a minimum wage of 3 1 cems per hour, those eaming between

$13.95 and $20.00 received a 10 percent wage increase, and those e-g between

$20.00 and $30.00 per week received a 5 percent wage increase.'

6RS,The Wnn ConSonts The Situation of Women Workers Today," 2.

7 Ibid., 2.

'"~rganktionReport," Jan 8, 1934 1, Reel3, NY WTUL Records. There were approxhately 150 workers at the Independent LaunciIy- 74

Soon thereafier, also citing NRA violations, workers at the Sunshine and Colonial

Laundries in Brooklyi5 New York went on strike. l0 Wealthy members of the New York

Women's Trade Union League helped organize picket lines, raised funds, assisted workers in obtaining relief rnoney, and attempted to use their innuence with police commissioners and the mayor. mer insuring that the strikers wouid experience no fùnher interfierence fkom the police, League members proudly proclairned "[wle finally taught them to believe that what the police manual says about lawful picketing is truc."" The League ako aided the strike by using one of its traditional tactics, the "Mink ~ri~ade."'~Wealthy women such as MrsGifford Phchot, Mrs. Richard S. Childs, Mary Dreier and Elsie Gluck could be found striking with poor Mcan-American laundry workers in the heart of the

Brooklyn ghetto." Predictably, the media faffilly covered such events. On January 24 the New York Times reported: "Mrs. Pinchot drove up to the Colonial Laundry 16

Lexington Avenue, Brooklyn at 8:05 AM in a limousine bearing the Pennsylvania license

10 There were approximately 200 wornen employees at the Sunshine Laundry and 100 at the Colonial Laundry. Schneiderrnm, AI1for One, 2 15; "ûrganizaîion Report," Jan. 8, 1934. Reel 3, NYWTULRecords.

Ili1Organization Report," Jan. 8, 1934, W3,NY WTUL Records; "Organïzation Repo*" Feb. 1934; "Organization Repoq" Mar. 1934; Minutes of the Executive Board, Jan. 25, 1934, Reel3, NY WTUL Records. League mernbers rezognked that "Becauseof our position in the labor rnovernent we have been able to secure adequate protection for the strikers, who were at first threatened by the bosses and th& hirelings."

'*The Mink Brigade was a traditional tactic of the League, fint used in the Shirtwaist Strike of 1909. The Mink Brigade consistai of weaithy women who marched dongside poor workers in an atternpt to lend th& "respectabiliq" and social stature to the workers' cause, and to create publicity for the workas. As Schneiderman explained it "[tlhey lent prestige, and, more important, an auni of respectability to our demonstrations." Schneiderman, AI.for One. 8.

l3 "Organization Report," Feb. 1934, Reel3, NY WTUL Records. plate P. 1 . . . .She told the -ers she was with them in their fight for a Living wage. "14

Recognizhg the power of the media, Schneidemüui aiso helped publicize the

laundry workers' cause. As a member of the Labor Advisory Board, Schneiderman was

required to go to Puerto Rico "to help in the writing of codes for industries of the island."15 At Schneiderman's request a contingent of striking laundry workers came to see

her oK16 As the New York fimes reported, Schneiderman "was chatting with a group of

fYiends when more than 100 striking laundry employees from Brooklyn arriveci to bid her good-bye."l7 The Worid Telegam recounted that Schneiderman received a "great crowd of poorly clad, ragged people, mostly women, many of them Negroes. " " The sarne publication fùrther reported that the "character of the occasion changed fiom one of polite bon voyages and seedy handshakes to one of militant and aggressive trade-union wa~fare-"'~lomalias noted that Schneiderman left "her nchly gowned fiiends flat" and told the laundry workers to "[gJo back to your picket lines and fight on . . . and

[rlemember you are fighting for the President of the United States." Finaily, the media

'""Mrs. Pinchot Joins Laundry Picket Line," New York fimes. Jan 24, 1934: 2; See also "Mrs.R S. Childs Aids Strike," New York Times Feb. 2, 1934: 6.

15"NRAto Establish Puerto Rico Codes," New York Times. Jan. 18, 1934: 7.

16"0rganizationReport," Feb. 1934, 1, Reel3, NY WTUL Records.

'7t'JohnsonLabor Aide Otffor Puerto Rico: Miss Schneiderman Greeted by 100 Laundry Smkers at Pier, Tels Them to Fight on," New York TÏmes?Jan. 19, 1934: 3.

1s Schneiderman, Alffor h,204.

lg"~OseSchneiderman Tums Sailing Into Striken' Rally," World Telegram?Jan. 1 8, 1934 in Red 2, National Women Trade Union League Papers (Hereafter NWTCR, Papers), Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Coilege, Cambridge, Mass. (Microfihn Edition of the Papers of the Wnn and Its Principal Leaders). 76 recounted that derher speech " [s]miles brightened the faces of the weary-looking wornen and the chests of the men were thmst out in pride. "'O

As the strike wore on, Grace Klueg, another active member of the NY League, also courageously spoke out for the rights of black wornen laundry workers. In an article published in the N'Y League1srnonthly bulletin, Klueg argued that "as long as We

Educated Whites . . . aIlw our neighbors to live in the mud of sordid poverty, we wili have to shake the same mud fiom our own heels." She asserted that "as an oId Leaguer, I hope we will be able to stay with our colored neighbors, our poor sisters of the la und rie^."^^ Perhaps somewhat overly optimisticaüy, Klueg argued that the Leaguels work had to continue "until we have convinced all the world that the League is the great

Leavener, the place where al1 womankind meet on the same ground to fight for our toiling sisters everywhere.

As weil as creating publicity for the strike, the League conducted a "nuisance campaign" directed at the St. George and Taft HoteIs, the two largest cuaomers of the

Sunshine and Colonial Laundnes. League members and workers telephoned the St.

George Hotel at 10-minute intervals to "inquirewhy they continued to patronire a Iaundry which defied the NRA and where workers were on strike against starvation wages."= The

2'~raceB. Klueg, "About the Strikers," March 1934 Bulletin of the NY WTC/L. 2, Reel8, WTUL Publications, Schlesinger Library, RadcIifEe College, Cambridge, Mass. (Microfilm Edition of the Papers of the WTUL and its P~cipalLeaders).

23 ti ûrganization Report," Feb. 1934; "OrganizaîionRepq" Mar. 1934, Ree13, N'Y WTUL Records. strike Myended when Eleanor Mishnun, the League's organizer, discovered that the

Colonial Laundry owner had not paid his water taxes for many years. She and Rose

Schneiderman visited Mayor Fiorello La Guardia who "[iln typical La Guardia fashion . . . called the employer and rad the riot act to The following day the employer agreed to grant the strikers some of their demands? The agreement that was reached provided that the saike be called off immediately, that al1 strike breakers be fired and ail strikers reinstated, that employers comply with the Minimum Wage Law and agree to settle al firture disputes with the Regional Lnbor Board, as well as to recognize the worker's right to bargain colIe~tivel~.~~Although the laundry owners did not meet aii these conditions, the successful completion of the strike both encouraged growth of the laundry workers organization and scared some other employers into paying the minimum wage."

A number of factors contributed to the successfid organization of the laundry workers in New York in the 1930s, no one of which by itself could have produced the same result. The progressive leadership offered by New York City mayor Fioreilo La

Guardia contributed to the laundry workers' success. Elected New York's ninety-ninth

24 Schneider-All for One. 216; "Organization Report," Mar. 1934, Red 3, NY WïUL Records. Mayor La Guardia actually turned off the water in both laundries. Interview with Doiiie Robinson, "The Twentieth Ce- Trade Union Wornan: Vehicle for Swal Change." 7ne imtute of Lubor and Indrïsztid Refutîons, The Michigan Historical Collections, Bentiey Historical Library, UNversiCy of Michigan, 1978,2. Hereafter, TCTUW, Robinson Interview.

USchneiderman, AIl for ûne. 2 16; "Organhtion Report," Mar. 1934, Reel3, NY WTUL Records; TCTUW, Robinson Interview, 2.

26 11Organization Report," March 19341, Reel3, NY WTUL Records.

271e Organization Report," March 1934 1-2, Reel3, NY WIZn Records. Some of the breaches of the agreement included the retention of some strikebreakers while some strikers were not reinstated. 78

mayor in 1933, La Guardia was in the words of his biographer Thomas Kessner, "one of a

generation of extraordinarily @ed New Yorkers who helped usher in the liberai era in

American ~istory"~'La Guardia believed the govemment had a responsibility to insure a

certain standard of living for its citizensWLong heraided as a fnend to the "negro," in

1931 the Amslerdam News described La Guardia as "one of the most fearless fiends the

Negro has ever had in or out of ~on~ress."jOin office La Guardia appointed blacks to

important positions and made himseifaccessibie to leaders of black organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the New York

Urban League. Kessner argues that La Guardia "generdy took liberai positions on racial

issues, chdenging estabiished biases and urging Americans to greater to~erance."~~

Following a vicious race riot in 1934, La Guardia established an eleven member cornmittee, headed by Dr. Charles Robert, a black dentist, to investigate the causes of the riot.j2 As a result of the cornmittee's recornrnendations, La Guardia allocated an unprecedented amount of the city's funds to the black cornmunity. As weii as building a housing project and health center in Harlem, he aiso integrated the staffs at New York's hospitals and increased employment opportunities for hcanAmericans in the city's civil

28 Thomas Kessner, FiorelIo La Guardia and the Makng of MdmNm York (New York: McGraw-HiIl Publishing, 1989), xü-mi. 79 service sector." While, as Kessner points out, La Guardia did not have a concrete plan for the eradication of the social and economic problems of New York's black cornmunity, he

did provide a liberal and supportive environment for New York City's African-Amencan

comrnunity to advance the cause of equality." It was Mayor La Guardia who, in 1933, turned off the water supply at the Sunshuie and Colonial Laundries thereby helping the

strikers secure many of their demands. Robinson, a worker in the Colonial, later recaiied that "great help for that strike was given by wayor] La Guardia, who turned off the water.

New York City also had a large black population which supported a number of black institutions - institutions that had evolved over the preceding generation and which would prove usefùl in the campaign to organize Afncan-Arnencan laundry workers. New

York City's black population had risen f?om 3 percent in 1920 to 12 percent of the total population in 1930.j6This population base supported the growth of a host of black institutions and organizations. ln New York City in 1905, African Americans formed two organizations dedicated to irnproving the economic opportunities available to their race.j7

In 19 11, these two organizations, the Cornmittee for Iinproving Industrial Conditions of

Negroes in New York, and the National League for the Protection of Colored Women,

"TcTUW, Robinson interview, 2.

37 John Hope FranbFm Slavery to Freedom: A History of AjmAmericcots, Seventh Edition (New York: Aifi-ed A Knopc 1994). 320. 80 rnerged to form the National League on Urban Conditions, more commonly known as the

National Urban ~ea~ue."The League committed itself to helping black workers gain industrial employment and assisting black migrants adjust to urban, industrial life.jg Doiüe

Robinson, a black laundry worker in New York City, argued that the Urban League

"catered to the industrial worker. They had people who really started working with industriai workers."' It was the Urban League which, in 1924, donated a room to the NY

WTLlL for use as an employment service for black women laundry workers.

Active and powerfui local branches of the NAACP, the Young Men's Christian

Association (YMCA), and the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) had also taken root in New York city4'Schneiderman often held meetings of the laundry workers at the Iocai YWCA. Dollie Robinson argued that the NAACP and YWCA contributed to the organizational success of the laundry workers. She asserted that the "NAACP is a good ground in any local community." She also noted that the YWCA "would b~gus in, the industrial secretaries would bring us in, and then we would agitate for a position on the board. And then they would reach out and have just one Little worker on the board.

That was great . . . that person leamed a lot. And ifthey brought it back and gave it to someone else, it was very helpful."" She also argued that she was "always doing things in

'*%id., 320-32 1.

'g%id., 32 1.

JO TCTUW,Robinson Interview, 57.

"~rankhqFrom SlcTvev fo Freedom. 3 19-3 22.

42TCTUW, Robinson Interview, 57. 81 the churches, with people, to explain issues and things." uiterviewed in 1978, Robinson regreîted the absence of this forging of bonds on the community level in the contemporary labor movement." Hence, one should not underestimate the importance of the black community to Afncan-American women's labor activism. A large and powerful black institutional infiastructure in New York City contributed substantially to the successfùl organization of black women laundry workers in the 1930s.

The federal situation also favored success in the 1930s. After the election of

Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, African Amencans switched political aiiegiance to the

Democratic ~arty.~Anican Amerïcans were particularly irnpressed with Franklin

Roosevelt's relief and recovery programs, which they perceptively regarded as advantageous to the black comrn~nit~.~~Franklin, and especiaiiy Eleanor Roosevelt, proved themselves sensitive to the plight of Afiican Arnericans in the United States. FDR frequently received blacks as visitors at the White House, while Eleanor Roosevelt travelled to black schools and federal projects relating to African ~mericans.*Most importantly, however, F'DR appointed Afncan Arnericans to positions of considerable importance in the federal govemment." In addition, FDR appointed Rose Schneiderman,

"TCTUW, Robinson Interview, 56. Robinson asserted thai: "1 dont see any labor people holding anything in any churches, in any community rooms. They're al dohg great thùigs, big things, but on that locd level, they're not doing t. And that's the thing that 1 think they're Mssing out on.. . Thq dont have the ties. And they cari? buy the ties. "

"~rankIin,From Slavery to Freedom. 3 87-3 88.

56 Ibid., 388-389.

47 ibid., 391-394. Examples of black appointees include Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of arguably the most vocal proponent of black women laundry workers. as a member of the

National Recovery Administration Labor Advisory ~oard."Once in a position to affect policy making, Schneiderman rushed through the minimum working standards for the laundry industry- an act which sparked the organization of the industry in the early and rnid- 1930s.

There were, however, obstacles dong the way. h the summer of 1935, the

Supreme Court declared the minimum wage law unconstitutional. As League members worriedly reported, workers were "again thrown on the mercies of employers who began cutting wages. ""'Immediately foilowing this decision, Local 290 of the Laundry Workers

International Union began an organizational drive in Manhattan and the Bronx. The NY

WTUL as weil as a number of local unions joined this campaign to organize the laundry operaiives of New York tat te." Rose Schneiderman, secretary-treasurer of the campaign, sponsored the drive. The NY League paid for circulars and planned mass meetings of the workers. Around the same the, an unprecedented event occurred, an event which the Bethune-Cwkman Coilege, Robert Vam, editor of the Pinsburg Cotrner, WiIliarn Hastie, dean of Howard University, to name a few. Although in the last few decades historians have cnticized Roosevelt's New Deal policies for not going fiir enough to insure racial equaitty, others draw attention to the fact that the 'Wew Deai's steps toward raciai justice and equality were unprecedented and were judged most favorably by blacks at the tirne." For a aitical andysis of the New Deal's Mure to improve race relations see Harvard Sitkoff, "The New Deal and Race Relations," Fzjty Yems Larer: 7he New Deal Evaluuteed ed. Harvard Sitkoff (New York: McGraw-Hiil Pubiishing, 1985): 93-1 12.

lsphilip Foner, Women and the Amerim Labor Movement From Worlii Wm Onr to Present, vol. 2 (New York: The Free Press, 1980), 279.

"y"~nnualReport of ûrganizer,,"April 1, 1936 to Mar. 30, 193 7, Reel4, NY WTUZ. Records.

""~nnualReport of Organizer," Apr- 1, 193 6- March 3O, 193 7,3-5, Rd4, NY WTUL contributed to the organization of the laundry workers.

In 1935, rnany An. fiatesstill denied women and blacks admission." The An

remained committed to organipng only skilled workers, thereby excluding most women and blacks who tended to be concentrated in unskilled workmS2Fmstrated with the AFL's conservatism, and gaivanized by the Wagner Act of 1935, which conferred upon labor the nght to bargain collectively, in 1935, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers broke away from the AFL to fonn the Congress of Industriai Organizations (CIO)." The CIO represented the industrial bloc of the AFL, those who wanted industry to be organized on an industry wide bais, as opposed to craft lines. Two of the most powerfùi founding unions of the CIO, the International Ladies' Garrnent Workers Union (ILGWLJ) and the

Amalgarnated CIothing Workers of America (ACWA), had long held liberal policies regarding the inclusion of black workers in their unions." From the begùullng, the CIO adopted the policy that it would organize workers of al1 races and both sexes. Beginnuig in

1936, CIO policy "open[ed] its doors to al1 black workers on an equal basis? Afncan

Records; "Organizaoio~"Sept. 1936 Bzdietin of the NY Wï7.K. 2, Reel8. WTUL Publications.

5 1Fona, Women ami the 0rgmi.ddLabor Movement, vol. 2, 333; Eric Amesen, "Foiiowing the Color Line of Labor: Black Workers and the Labor Movement Before 1930," RadimZ History Raiew 55 (1993): 75.

'*~ranklin,From Shryto Freeciem, 40 1.

54Ibid., 403.

55~hilipFoner, OrgCMitedLzbor d the Bkk Worket, 16194973 (New York: Praeger, 1974), 2 16 (quote); Franklùi, FmSlavery to Frce&rn, 403. 84 Americans quickly threw their support behind the new ~r~anization.~~Although sorne labor historians have begun to modG what they refer to as an "idealized" view of the

CIO, despite its shortcornings "the CIO was unquestionably the most important single development since the Civil War in the black worker's struggle for equality."57

A CIO afnliate, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of Arnerica, took on the mass organization of the laundry workers of New York City. On June 16, 193 7, the Laundry

Drivers' Union Local 8 10 and Inside Workers' Local 280 withdrew support from the An

Linked Laundry Workers International Union, and afliliated with the Amalgamated

Clothing Workers of Amenca, a member union of the ~10.~'On Augua 6, the ACWA chartered the United Laundry Workers Local 300.'~ Mer years of the An's half-hearted efforts, laundry workers abandoned the iLWU for the more progressive approach of the

CIO.

Rose Schneiderrnan held a predisposition to work with the newly formed CIO. Her biographer, Gary Endelman, argues that from the beginnllig of her presidency,

Schneiderman chose to distance the NY League f?om the Schneiderman's belief

5 6Frankhq From SZavery to Freedom, 403404; Foner, Women and the Americcm Labw Movernent, vol. 2,3 19.

57 Herbert Hill argues that although the CIO admitteci blacks, it then engaged in a number of diScTiminatory practices, includuig denying blacks equai promotion, seniority rights and limiting them to unskiiled jobs, 199-200. Herbert Hill, "The Problern of Race in American Labor History," Rwiews in Arne- History 24 (19%): 1W-2OO; Foner, Organzzed hbor ami the BlocR Workw, 23 7 (quote).

58i1Report of ûrganization," June-Sept. 1937, 1, Reel4, NY WTUL Records.

Endelman, "Solidanty Forever Rose Schneiderman and the Wornen's Trade Union that the governrnent could be used to ameliorate many of the social evils of indum.

constantly brought her into conflict with AFL President Samuel Gompers.61When the

Amalgamated Clothing Workers of Amenca broke away fiom the An fiate, the

United Garment Workers in 19 10, Schneideman antagonized the An by recognipng the newly formed ACW.~' By the mid- l9ZOs, the An and the NY WTLn's relationship deteriorated even Mer.In 1924, Gompers proposed the creation of a women's division in the An,a proposal he made contingent upon the NY League's retirement." In 1936, when the An suspended aii intemational unions associated with the CIO, Schneideman refùsed to endorse the expulsion? At a meeting in 1937 of the executive board of the

League, Schneideman officially endorsed the CI O.^' The combination of the emergence of the CIO in 1935, and Schneideman's predisposition to work with the new union, contributed greatly to the organization of the laundry workers in the late 1930s under the banner of the ACWA.

In the same month that the laundry workers chartered their new organization,

Sidney Hillrnan, President of the ACWA, and Sarnuei Berland, manager of Local 300,

League, " Ph.D. Diss. University of Delaware, 1978, 104.

6 1Ibid., 104.

%id., 105-106.

'%id., 108-109.

64Foner, Women cvui the Arne- Labur Movement, vc k2,30 1; Endelman, "Solidanty Forever, " 23 7.

63Endelman, "Solidariîy Forever," 23 8; Foner, Women and the Amerkm Lnbor Movernent, vo1.2,30 1. This is not surprising given that John Lewis was a long thesupporter of the League. signed a union agreemmt which included more than 10,000 laundry workers." The

agreement called for a closed shop, a minimum wage of $15.75 per week, a 45 hour work

week, one week's paid vacation, time and one-halffor overtime, and eight legal holidays6'

In September of 1937, Local 300 signed a second contract with thirty of the city's largest

laundry owners. Around 10,000 more laundry operatives were brought under union

contracts. This second agreement increased the nurnber of organized laundry workers in

New York City to 25,000.~' By 1941 hast all the laundry workers of New York City

were organized under the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of ~rnenca.~'Florence Rice, an

Anican-Amencan laundry worker and organizer for the ACW recalled, "[Ilt was like the

salvation."'O Schneiderman described the unionkation of these workers as a "wonderfùl climax to Our years of work.""

"Report of Organizer," June-Sept. 193 7, 1, Reel4, NY WTLR. Records.

67"~eportof Organùer," lune-Sept. 1937, 1, Reel4, NY WTUL Records; Elizabeth Chnstman to Margaret Dreier Robins, Aug. 19, 1937,24, Reel44, Margaret Dreier Robins Papers (Hereafter MDR Papen), University of Florida, Gainesville, Ra (Microfilm Edition of the Papers of the WTüL and Its Principal Leaders); Muutes of Organization Cornmittee, Aug. 1O, 1937, 1, Reel4, NY WTUL Records.

68"~dryWorkers Wm: Agreement is Signed for Them by Clothing Union," New York 7ims Aug. 11, 1937: 26; 'Wman is Cool to AFL Peace Bi4" Nrw York Thes Sept. 4 1937: 6.

69~nestimated 3û,000 laundry workers in the New York City area were organized by 1938. Jean Collier Brown, Ine Negro Womm Worker, United States Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, Bulletin no. 165 (1 938): 15; United States Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, Women WorksNi Power LamciZies, Bulletin no. 2 15 (1947): 4.

'%orence Rice, "It Takes a While to Realize That It 1s Discriminanon," 276.

7 1Schneidemian, Ail For ûne. 2 17. 87 Ten years later Schneiderman attended the Laundry Worker Union's tenth anniversary in Madison Square Garden. As she delightedy recounted in her autobiography: "The women were beautifully dressed in evening clothes. The men well- groomed. It was really amazing what ten years of organization could do for a large group of exploited, underpaid workers. 1 lefi the celebration satisfied that 1 had done a good job for them. Rose Schneiderman's dedication to black women laundry workers played an integral role in their successfid unionization in the 1930s. Elsewhere, particularly in the

South, where there was an oversuppiy of Afncan-Arnerican women who desired laundry work over sharecropping and domestic service, fican-Amencan women workers lacked the influentid allies of their Northem sisters, and as a consequence unionization was nearly

Nevertheless, while the New York Women's Trade Union League and Rose

Schneiderman played invaiuable roles in the organization of the laundry workers, as

Schneiderman put it, the "chef credit goes to the brave workers who put up a splendid battel [sic] for six weeks during raiq snow and bitter ~old."'~Among these extraordinary women were people mch as Dollie Robinson. This Colonial Laundry employee would open the pickeî line at 4:30 AM, leave at 8:00 AM to attend law school at 9:00AM, and

=~ollieRobbn did attempt to spur organization in the laundry industq in the South by travelling in the 1930s and 1940s to Southem locations. Whüe she enjoyed some success in oqmkhg the laundry worken in Chattanooga, Tennessee, she maintains thaî in "places like Athens, Georgia, and places of that sort, those were diffiailt places at that the, very diflicuit." TCTUW, Robinson interview, 42-43.

'%rganization Report," Mar. 193 4, Reel3, NY WTUL Records. 88 then return to the union office at 12:OO PM. Robinson insisted though that CharIone

Adelman, a fellow Afncan-Arnerican laundry worker, "really started the laundry union . . . she was very vocal and [a] very hard-working and very honest person, and the workers beiieved her. So, she contracted [sic] a number of us, and with the help of the Women's

Trade Union League, because they helped her, they started organizing laundry workers."

Robinson contends that "she was an excellent leader, really a great woman. And 1 know many of us owe a great deal to her, because she was the one that really preached trade unionism to us."" Maida Springer Kemp remembered Adelman as "one of the giants of the laundry workers." She argued that "Charlotte gave We, gave reason to an industry that people felt degraded and hopeless in."76

As well as helping black women laundry workers unionize, the New York League dso educated ecan-American women as to the benefits of collective bargaining. In

1923, Rose Schneiderman CO-foundedthe N'Y WTUL's School for Women Workers. The school taught basic courses such as econornics, trade-union hiaory, English literature, as

75 TCTUW, Robinson Interview, 1-3,9.59.

76Intexview with Maida Springer Kemp, Bkk Woman Oral History Prqject, Schiesinger Library, Radcliffe Coilege, Cambridge, Mass. 1977,7 1. Hereafta BWOHP,MSKernp Interview. 89 weil as music, art and drama.n From the beginning the New York School accepted black women workers, as Schneiderman wrote, "[tlhere were usually several Negro girls in the class. "" hcluded in the course was a weekend trip to Washington. Because of the segregationist policies of that city, Schneiderman noted that initially: "It was impossible to get a hotel to take both groups in. Nor could they eat in the same resta~ants."'~

Following the establishment of the fûst interracial hotel the Lucy Diggs Slowe and Carver

Hd in Washington by Afncan Amencans, Schneiderman irnmediately housed all funire

League students at the new interracial establishment. As soon as interracial restaurants opened in Washington, she also arranged that the students take "their meah only at those places which welcomed Negro and white citizens, a~ce."'~As reflected by her numerous efforts on behaifof black women laundry workers, as well as her educational endeavours to teach white students racial toierance, and black students the p~ciplesof trade unionisrn, Rose Schneiderman consistently displayed a genuine concern for Afncan-

Arnerican women workers.

As weil as being a fiiend to black women laundry workers, Schneideman displayed a rare sensitivity to the problems facing the black cornrnunity. During the 1930s and 1940s, Schneiderman watched with horror the increasing race prejudice toward Jews in Europe and blacks in America. In a militant speech condemning racial prejudice,

77 Schneidennan, All for One. 15 7-1 59.

78~bid.,159.

%id.

"Nywnn Annual Report, April 1948,6, Red22 NY Wnn Records. 90

Schneiderman larnented that "[llabor, and particularly organized labor, has watched with gowing apprehension the increase of racial prejudice and its violent accompanyments

[sic]." Always anxious to expose the role of industry in the perpetuation of racial hostilities, Schneiderman asserted that, "[tlhe race riots which occurred in various States,

Alabama, Texas, Jersey [sic], and Michigan, early last year, were due, in the main, to highly inflammable conditions which exid in every industrial center."'' Findy, she concluded her speech arguing that "Jirn Crow laws, forceful segregation of aU bdsmust be combatted and repelied.""

Schneiderman's efforts on the behalfof black women workers, as well as her sensitivity regarding racial discrimination, did not go u~oticedby the Afrcan-Arnerican cornmunity. Dollie Robinson recognized the important role that the Women's Trade Union

League played in the organization of the laundry workers, "ail of us-becarne members of the Women's Trade Union League because then the only way we could learn about unions

. . . was through the Women's Trade Union ~eague.""She argued that "[tlhey perfomed a very real fiction for young trade unionist women who were active but needed to know how to be active and what to do."sJ Maida Springer Kemp, an Afiican-American trade unionist in New York, supports Robinson's contention that the NY WTUL played an important role in the organization of women workers. Kemp recded that a "lot of us

ose Schneiderman, "Speech to the National Conference of Christians and Jews," Feb. 1944, I, Red 21, NYWTUL Records.

"TCTUW, Robinson Interview, 29. 9 1 regularly attended the Women's Trade Union meetings and many of us were given an opportunity-you spoke about things . . . it gave you greater ~tren~th."~'She argued that

"[tlhe in NY City offered a forum for working women and an additional part of the leaming process, and additional part of self respect. "86

Upon Schneiderman's retirement fiom the League in 1949, Frank Crosswaith of the Negro Labor Cornmittee wrote that "[ylour life and constructive seMce in the

American labor movement will in the years ahead, constitute one of the most fascinating and inspiring pages in the history of lab~r."~'A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of

Sleeping Car Porters commended Schneiderman's "thirty one years of loyal devotion and untiring efforts to the cause of organized Iabor." He acknowledged that "she has worked closely with both our Ladies Awiliq and our parent body, having sponsored Our organization in the early days when fiiends were few and hard to find.

The New York Women Trade Union League's numerous attempts to reach out to and improve the working conditions of NYs Afncan-Arnerican women laundry workers set it apart from the more ha-hearted approaches adopted by the National WTUL and

85 BWOHP, MSKernp Interview, 71.

"%id.

%rank R Crosswaith to RS, April7, 1949, Red 1, RS Papers.

88 k Philip Randolph to Mn. Gerel Rubien, June 3, 1949, Reel 1, RS Papers. 92 other local Leagues. While the New York League's ability to live up to the National

League's rhetoric of equality was infiuenced by factors such as the existence of a large black institutionai infrastructure in New York, and a favorable political clirnate, Rose

Schneiderman's progressive leadership greatly contributed to the League's willingness to help black women unionize. Recognizing that a majority of laundry operatives in NY were

Afiican-American, Schneiderman utilized race-specific organizational strategies which revolved around the League's interaction with black workers, black civil rights groups, and the larger acan-American comrnunity. The NY League actively solicited the suppon of aii those "interested in the advancement of the colored race."89

Given the conservatism, if not outright racism of the Amencan labor movement,

Schneiderman's concem for black workers is both compelling and extraordinary. Her concem distinguishes her from the more indserent approaches adopted by Margaret

Dreier Robins and Mary Dreier. As an East European Jewish immigrant, Rose

Schneiderrnan readily identified with the class and race oppression experienced by African-

American women, in a way that wealthier, Anglo-saxon leaders could not. Born April6,

1882 in Savon., Poland, Schneiderman's fady ernigrated to New York City's East Lower

Side in 1890. Mer her father died of meningitis in 1892, Schneiderman's widowed mother was forced to place Rose and her brothers in a Jewish orphanage for the space of a

Even after being reunited with her mother, Schneiderman, Wce so many other young immigrant girls, was forced to leave school in order to contribute to the family wage

*%S to Mr. Robert deForesf March 14, 1924, Reel 1 1, NY WTüL Records.

90 Schneidemian, Ali for One, 1 l-Z3,27-3 1. economy. Schneiderman worked first in a department store, then secured a higher paying job in a cap factory. Although she initially had sorne reservations about the cornmitment of

middle and upper-class women to working women, in 1905 she was persuaded by the

Dreier sisters, and her working ciass fnend Leonora O'ReilIy, to join the NY WTUL. In

19 18, Schneiderman became President of the League, a poa she held until 1949." While

Schneiderman's position brought her into contact with prominent figures such as Eleanor

Roosevelt, Schneideman never lost sight of her working class roots.*

Schneiderrnan also possessed the charisrna and personal qualities of a great leader.

She was an inspiring orator who could reach into the hearts and minds of poor workers, as weil as wealthy and duential people such as the Roosevelts. M.A. Shenvood, a League member, described the effect Schneiderman had on people: "Strong men sat with the tears rohg down their cheeks . . . . Her pathos and earnestness held the audiences spelibound." She argued that "no one has ever touched the hearts of the masses like Miss

Rose chn ne idem an. "'j Schneiderman's charm and personai charisma enabled her to cultivate interest in what could easily have been an unpopular cause- the organization of

92Rose Schneiderman's bioppher, Gary Endelman, argues that Schneidemian "graddy divorced herselffiom the immigrant working world in which she had grown up, spending more the with politicians and social worken than with factory workers." (129) While this statement holds true for the latter Iialfof hacareer, Schneiderman continueci to remain invoIved in field work throughout the 1930s. Whiie she couid have lefk the task to the League organizer, Schneidem regularly aîtended organizatiod meetings of the workers, most notably the laundry workers. Further, while she unquestionably çpent a great deal of time with politicians and reformers, this is more a reflection of her belidin the power of the governent to improve working conditions, than a concertecl effort to distance herseIf fiom the worlang class women on whose behalf she labored.

"M.A Sherwood to Mrs. Upton, July 15,1912, Reel 1, RS Papen. 94 black women workers. Schneidexman also acted as a liaison between upper-class activists

and poor workers. As Maida Springer Kemp acknowledged, Schneiderman could bring

"the women of wealth and prominence to understand the concems, the problems of

working women. "% Her departure for Puerto Rico perhaps best illustrates this point. As

observers reported: Schneiderman was seen off "by richly dressed friends . . . fkom the

upper rads of society, and a delegation of 300 poorly clad miking laundry workers from

Brooklyn.. .many of them Negroes. " Mer Schneiderman's inspirational speech to the

workers, journalists reported that "the crowd fiied out, ragged women rubbing shoulders

with fur c~ats."'~Who else could have united such a diverse group of well wishers? And

who else could have generated such enthusiasm for the plight of black women laundry

workers?

Schneiderman's class and racial background ailowed her to identie with Afiican-

American women workers in a way in which Margaret Dreier Robins and Mary Dreier never could. Born into a wedthy New York Anglo-Saxon business farnily, Margaret

Dreier Robins and Mary Dreier never experienced hancial insecuity or racial discrimination.% ln fact their class privilege allowed the sisters the tirne to devote themselves to philanthropie work such as vade unionism. Furthemore, while both women worked and lived in close proximity to working class women and men, (Robins lived with

95 o ose Schnaderman Tums Sailuig tnto Strikers' My," WoM Telegram, Jan. 18, 1934, Reel2, NWTUL Papers.

%Mary Dreier, Mrogaet Dreier Robh: Her Llf, Letter., and Work (New York: Island Press. 1950), 1-1 1. 95 her husband, social reformer Raymond Robins, in a cold water flat in a crowded Chicago tenement f?om 1907 to 1923), neither woman seerns to have had much contact with

Afncan ~mericans." Robins' most intimate association with ecanArnericans came from her position of mistress of her husband's norida estate, ~hinse~ut.~'On the estate, Robins superviseci the numerous black servants who were responsible for the upkeep of the large home. Adopting a paternalistic and sometimes overtly condescending attitude toward her servants, Robins fkequently referred to the black workers as the "darkie~."~~Not having much contact with black women worken, with the exception of those employed to perform the domestic tasks that tied Iess privileged women to home and hearth, Robins was simply unable to idenw with the racial and econornic oppression expenenced by

Afiican-American women workers.

While Rose Schneiderman played a crucial role in the organization of New York

City's black laundry workers, it was a unique combination of circumstances which enabled black women laundry workers to achieve organization in the mid and late 1930s. The liberal municipal chate created by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, the existence of a large and powertiil black institutional idkastmcture, the Roosevelts' progressive racial stance, the emergence in 1935 of the CIO, and the progressive leadership offered by New York

Wornen's Trade Union League President Rose Schneiderman, converged to enable black wornen laundry workers in New York City to organize and improve dieir working

%R to MD, Dec. 28, 1927, 1, Re1 3 1, MDR Papas; MDR to MD, Jan 9, 1929,2, Reel 32, MDR Papers. 96 conditions. Because black women laundry workers experienced sex, race and class oppression, it took the combination of al1 these factors to allow Afncan-American women laundry workers in New York to achieve what laundry workers elsewhere were unable to achieve- that is organization.

The success of the New York Leaguets campaign to organire black women laundry workers also serves to distinguish it from the actions of the National and other local Leagues. While the National League committed itself to the principles of racial equality, New York was one of the few places where these principles became reaiity.

Although there is not enough evidence to speak of the other local Leagues, there are reasons to believe that the combination of circumstances which contnbuted to the New

York League's ability to live out the National League's rhetonc of equality, were unique to

New York. Further, when considered in the context of the racial climate of the 1%Os, the

New York Leaguets actions are quite impressive. While the National Women's Trade

Union League and the AFL did virtudy nothing to help black workers organize, the New

York League consistently worked to better the conditions of black women workers. The

NY WTUL stands as an exception to a general pattern of antipathy and discrimination on the part of organized labor toward the plight of black wornen workers. Conclusion

In 1989, Nell Irvin Painter wrote that the "new labor history has a race problem."'

The dearth of scholarship on African-American women workers and the organized labor movement, suggests that it has both a race and a gender problern. Although studies on black women workers have proliferated in the last ten years, there have been few attempts to examine their relationship to the organired labor movement. It is aii too often assumed that because of the raciaiiy exclusionary practices of organized labor, notably the

Amencan Federation of Labor, black wornen workers had little interaction with either the

AFL or its union affiliates. Afncan-Amencan women laundry worken' involvement in organized labor, mediated through the WTUL, wiU help to illuminate their relationship to mainstream labor organizations such as the AFL, as weU as to begin to address a void in the literature on the WTUL. While the scholarship on the League is most impressive, there have been no attempts to examine the League's relationship to Anican-Arnerican women

Wbrkers. While far from extensive, this work hopes to begin to address this oversight in the literature.

When compared with its egalitarian rhetoric, the actual efforts of the National

Women's Trade hionLeague on behaif of black women workers are disappointingiy few.

While organizations such as the National Arnencan Woman Sufiage Association were working to exclude black women f?om membership, the NWTZn was professing its "very

1Neil Inin Painter, "The New Labor Histow and the Histoncal Movemai&"1nternafibna.l Jm~dof Politics. CCir[re and Skiep, 2 ( 1989): 3 69-3 70. 98 great desire . . . to protect the colored women workers through ~r~anization."~Tirne and

again the IVWTüL declared itself committed to the organization of black women workers,

and to helping white and black women wage earners achieve class and gender solidarity.

However, despite claims for racial equality and pledges to help black women unionire, in

reality the NWTUL accomplished very little towards irnproving the status of the black

femaie wage earner. The National League's reliance on the An,its perpetual lack of

funds, and its relatively conservative leadership combineci with a raciaily hostile climate to

prevent the League £fom ever living up to its egalitarian rhetoric. Following the lead of its

fiatemal organization the An,in practice the NWTUL either ignored the plight of black

women workers, or helped them organize into racialiy separate JiCrow Iocals. In either

instance the benefits to black women workers were few. The NWTUL foliowed a general pattern of antipathy or segregation similar to that of the AFL toward the organization of black workers.

h contrast to the NWTUL, the New York WTUL lived out the National League's rhetorical cornmitment to racial equality. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the League worked vigorously to organize black women laundry workers. Such efforts indicate that while black women, Like the WTUL, were forced to suMve on the edges of the organized labor movement, this did not preclude individual efforts on the part of black women workers such as Dollie Robinson, and labor leaders such as Rose Schneiderman, to bring

Afncan-American women into the folds of trade unionism. The alliance between black

2~araHunter Graham, Wornm, Swage anid the New Derntxrq (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1 W6), 2 1-25;Philip Foner, Women and the Amencm Labor Movemeni: From Colonial ?7mes to the Ew of WW7, vol. 1 (New York: The Free Press, 1979). 340. 99 women laundry workers and the leaders and upper-class activists of the NY WTUL. provides a rare glimpse of an interracial, cross-class alliance within the context of the

Women's Labor Movement. Such an alliance was made possible by the progressive leadership of Rose Schneiderman. At a the when the plight of striking black women laundry workers could easily have been an unpopuiar cause, Schneideman used her personal charm and charisma to interest both the media and upper-class allies in the outcome of the laundry workers' struggle. Throughout her iife, Schneiderman remained dedicated to seeing black women laundry workers organized under the appropriate Ai3 local, then &er 1936 under the Arnalgamated Clothing Workers of Arnenca, a member union of the newly formed CIO. The actions of Rose Schneiderman and the alliance between the NY WTUL and black women laundry workers, set the NY League apart fiom the blatantly discriminatory practices of the An,and the policy of neglect or segregation adopted by the NWTUL.

However, while Rose Schneiderman and the NY WTUL must be cornmended for the roles they played in the organization of New York's black laundry workers, one must not underestirnate the importance of the black community to Aûican-Arnerican women's labor activism. The existence in New York of a large and powerful black institutional infiastructure greatly contnbuted to the organization of New York's black laundry workers. Without the efforts of extraordinary women such as Doliie Robinson, who acted as a liaison between the black community and organized labor, it is quite likely that organization would have proceeded at a much slower pace. Because black women comprised one of the most exploited groups of women workers, unionization could be achieved in oniy the most favorable settings. The efforts of Rose Schneiderman and the 1O0 Afncan-American community of New York, augmented by those of Mayor Fiorelio La

Guardia, the Roosevelts' and the Congress of Indumial Organizations, provided such conditions. Wiîhout any one of these factors, the outcome might have been very different.

Uncovering the stones of little studied historicai actors such as these black women laundry workers, will help illuminate their relationship to both the male-dorninated

American Labor Movement and the Women's Labor Movernent, as well as to contribute to our knowledge of traditional fields of historical inquiry. While this thesis hopes to shed light on the interactions between black women workers and the Women's Trade Union

League, much of this relationship remains to be explored. Further anaiysis into this relationship wiil likely reveal both predictable tensions and unexpected rapprochements between black women workers and the activists of the WTUL, as well as illuminate the expenences of black women in the labor force. In the end we al1 stand to gain fiom endeavours to recover the stones of previousiy silent historicd actors, and to relate their experiences to Our current knowledge of Labor Kistory, Women's History and Political

Kistory. Bi bliogra phy

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Kessner, Thomas. Fiorello H. La Gzimdiu mrd the Maki,g of Modern NL?Y York. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing, 1989.

Kirby, Diane. "Class, Gender and the Perils of Philanthropy: The Story of Life and Labor and Labor Reform in the Women's Trade Union League." Jozimal of Wometi4 Histoy 4 (1992): 36-5 1.

Kirby, Diane. "The Wage-Earning Woman and the State: The National Women's Trade Union League and Protective Labor Legislation, 1903- 1923." Laoor Hisfov 28: 1 (1987): 54-74.

Lebsock, Suzanne. "Women and Amencan Poiitics, 1880- 1920. " Women, Politics, and Change. Eds. Louise A. Tay and Patricia Gurin. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1990; 35-62.

Millanan, Ruth. "Gender and Trade Unionism in Histoncal Perspective." Women. Politics. rmd Chmge. Eds. Louise A. Tilly and Patricia Gurin. New York: Russell Sage Orleck. Annelise. Cornmon Semand a Linle Fire: Women md Workrr~g-ClassPolitics in the (Inited States, 1900-1965. Chape1 Hill: University of North Carolina, 1995.

Painter, Neii Irvin. "The New Labor Hiaory and the Historicai Movernent." InfemtiomiJournal of Politics, Culture mui Sociey 2 ( 1 989): 369-3 70.

Payne, Elizabeth Anne. Reform, Lobor, aitd Feminism: Murgarer Dreier Robins and the Wommk Tradr Union Lqre. Urbana: University of ILLinois, 1988.

Pleck, Elizabeth H. "A Mother's Wages: incorne Eaming Among Mked Italian and Black Women, 1896- 19 11 . " A Heritage of Her Uwrz: Tda New Social Histoy of Americm Women Eds. Nancy F. Cott and Eiizabeth Pleck. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

Roediger, David. The Wages of Whiieness: race and the mhgof the Americm working clasr. London: Verso, 199 1.

Rodgers-Rose. Frances. neBlack Womm. California: Sage, 1 980.

Scott, Anne Firor . Nu~zïralAllies: Wornen's Associalions il1 Arnerican History. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1991.

Sklar, Kathryn Kish. Floreme Kelley and the Nation's Wurk: neRise of Womeit 's Politicai Ctritz~re,1830-1 960. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Tax, Meredith. The Risirtg of the Women: Feminist Solidariiry and CfmsCoi flicr. 1880- 1917. New York: Monthly Review, 1980.

Terborg-Penq Rosalyn. "DiscriminationAg- Afko-Arnerican Women in the Woman's Movement, 183 0- 1920. " neAfroAmencan Woman: Srruggles and Images. Eds. Sharon Harley and RosaIyn Terborg-Penn. New York: National University, 1978.

Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. "Su~valStrategies among Afiican-American Women Workers: A Continuing Process. " Wornan, Work and Protest: A Centzwy of (I. S. Wumen's Labor History. Ed. Ruth Milkman. Boston: Routledge, 1985, 139- 155.

Turbin, Carole. Workrtg Women of Collm City: Gender, Clars, and Comrmcniîy in Tory, New York* 1864-1886. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Wertheimer, Barbara Mayer. We Were There: neStory of Workng Women in Arnerica New York: Pantheon Books, 1 977.

Zimmerman, Joan G. "The Jurisprudence of Equaiity: The Women's Minimum Wage, the 1O8 Fira Equal Rights Amendment, and Adkins v. Childrenls Hospital. 1905-1923. " Jmtrnal of Am-ricm History 78 (1991): 188-225.

II. Dissertations

Endelman, Gary. "Solidarity Forever: Rose Schneiderman and the Women's Trade Union League. " University of Delaware, 1978.

Hunter, Tera W. "Household Workers in the Making: Mo-American Women in Atlanta and the New South, 186 1 - 1 920. " Yale University, 1990. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (QA-3)

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