The herald., 1913-07-31
WOMEN UN|ON|STS
White Goods Strikers Case
Recalls a Bit of History.
AN APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC.
Female Industrial Society Met In New
York City Nearly Seventy Years Ago
to Protest Against Low Wages and
Long Hours.


Long Hours.
IL view of the recent victories won
by the organized women of the white
goods trades Of New York city 1t is in
teresting to revert to the first feeble
efforts of working women to secure
labor reform. In the crises which have
just added another chapter to the story
OF women in industry. one of the sig
nifcant points made was the ability of
the young workers to stand together.
Their keen appreciation of organiza-
ton and solidarity was particularly i'm
preSsive to the men and women sym
pathizers who watched them a few
Sundays ago come up, crying, to cast
their votes against a surrender that
would have meant the ultimate disrup-
ton of the union they had built up by
hard work. And another point made
was the reliance Of the young workers
upon public sympathy. Over and over
their chosen speakers told them, over
and over they told themselves, las
soon as the people understand how it
is with us they will stand by u.s." 1t
is, in particular, along this line of re-
lance that a parallel may be institut-
ed between them and those earlier wo-
men workers who agitated for labor
reform.
Sixty-eight years ago there was
curious meeting held in the superior
court of the city hall. when the Female
Industrial society appealed to its great
ally, the public, for better wages. This
society was open to all branches of
women's industry, from plain and
coarse sewing to book folding.
A Miss Gay, twenty-five, pretty and
timid," was in the chair and presented
the women's complaint. This is Miss
Gays only biography. as preserved in
history. but there is many a less wor-
thy one.
There was naivete in the approach
Of these women to the warm. big heart
ed public for help Surely, they must
have argued. the people" cannot know
that there are $1,000 of us working on
almost any terms up to fifteen and
eighteen hours day and that we can
not earn even 50 a week. Surely the
people" will not let us go on working
our young hearts out of US for 10 to
25 cents day.
The simplicity of their appeal is sig
nified by their readiness to accept the
offer of Signor Palma of the Opera
House to give them a benefit on the
9th Of March. 1916. and the same sim
plicity of distress resolved them to
present their wrongs to the public and
to meet again But a real organization
was to be behind them on the next oc
casion. and. for the furthering of this
end, they appointed a committee from
the tailoresses. the plain and coarse
sewers, the shirt makers. the book
folders and stitchers. the straw work
ers, the dressmakers, the crimpers. the
fringe and lacemakers, who seem to
have composed the variety Of workers
present.
The matter OF labor reform was han
died a little differently In Massachu
setts, where the first legislative investi
CATION of labor conditions was made In
lutL sdIut year. anu a ldl bC polI VI thC
petitioners from Andover and from
Lowell for that investigation were wo-
men. At the Lowell convention there
were twenty men and ten women.
Among the thirty were Albert Bris-
bane. W. FL. Charming. Robert owen,
from Scotland. and Horace Greeley.
who addressed the meeting. 1t also ap-
40 1Ir -
to 90 to a convention In New York for
the purpose of instituting labor re-
forms there. Wendell Phillips. William
Lloyd Garrison. Charles A. Dana, Abb
jah Watson and Theodore Parker made
up the band of delegates.
This first memorable convention dis
cussed all sorts of things. such as the
Oregon lands, abolition. etc. 1t seems
to have thought that the matter Of
the greater freedom Of women's labor
was a part Of the general human
movement for righteousness. just as
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.
Anthony twenty years later worked for
labor organization and suffrage indis-
criminately.
At the Baltimore labor unions con-
gress in 1866 Susan B. Anthony was
accepted as a delegate. but Mrs Eliza
beth Cady Stanton's credentials were
discredited until after a heated de-
bate, because the suffrage association
was not a labor organization. She
was finally admitted, with the con-
gress on record as not indorsing her
peculiar ideas" However. the point
is that the women who worked for the
independence of wage and work were
those who worked for the independ-
ence of women politically. for the his
tory Of the times offers continuous tes-
timony that'the hardest work for wo-
mans industrial freedom In those
years just after the war was done by
Susan B. Anthony and her followers
49,.