As equals and as sisters : feminism, the labor movement, and the Women's Trade Union League of New York
Abstract
This book is the story of the New York Women's Trade Union League's efforts to reach New York City's working women and interest them in unionization, to create an alliance of upper-class and working-class women, and to synthesize unionism and feminism into a viable program for improving the lives of New York City's women wage earners. It is an attempt to delineate the cultural, ideological, and tactical difficulties the WTUL encountered in its efforts to organize the city's working women and its ultimate disillusionment with the strategy of integrating women into male-dominated unions. Finally, this work is concerned with the league's transformation from a self-defined labor organization that downplayed women's special concerns in the work force into a women's reform organization that emphasized specifically female demands, namely, woman suffrage and protective labor legislation.
Table of Contents
No place, no power, no voice -- Working women's situation -- The league begins its work -- Forming unions, 1904-1909 -- Revolution in the garment trades, 1909-1913 -- Sisterhood and class conflict -- The suffrage campaign -- The fight for protective legislation.