{"id":8071,"date":"2025-10-29T13:33:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T17:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/?p=8071"},"modified":"2025-11-05T13:45:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T18:45:48","slug":"womens-trade-union-league-rises-in-november-1903","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/issue\/volume-43-no-10\/womens-trade-union-league-rises-in-november-1903\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s Trade Union League rises in November 1903"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_8074\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8074\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-8074 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/11\/LaborHistory.jpg\" alt=\"Women\u2019s Trade Union League rises in November 1903\" width=\"1200\" height=\"603\" srcset=\"https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/11\/LaborHistory.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/11\/LaborHistory-300x151.jpg 300w, https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/11\/LaborHistory-1024x515.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/11\/LaborHistory-768x386.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8074\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Women&#8217;s Trade Union League participating in 1908 Labor Day Parade in NYC, courtesy of Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em>November 7, 2025 &#8212;<\/em> <span data-contrast=\"auto\">In the late 1800s and early 1900s, working conditions for most in the United States were fraught with danger and low wages. For women workers, that was especially true. It was the creation of \u201csettlement\u00a0houses\u201d\u00a0that\u00a0helped\u00a0working women\u00a0organize\u00a0on the job.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Settlement houses brought together middle- and upper-class reformers with\u00a0working-class\u00a0women.\u00a0Often, working-class women who lived in settlement houses would receive\u00a0assistance\u00a0from\u00a0their\u00a0wealthier\u00a0benefactors.\u00a0The \u201csettlement movement\u201d\u00a0was popular in the U.S. from\u00a01890\u00a0-1910\u00a0due to the immigration of\u00a0more than\u00a012 million Europeans.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Two social reformers\u00a0who worked in settlement houses,\u00a0Mary Morton Kehew and Jane Addams,\u00a0led the way in the settlement movement, and later in the labor movement.\u00a0With the help of the American Federation of Labor, Kehew and Addams organized the Women\u2019s Trade Union League (WTUL) and became the first president and vice president of the organization in 1903.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">By 1904, the organization had branches in Chicago, New York City,\u00a0and Boston. WTUL worked to provide\u00a0working women\u00a0with educational opportunities, while also supporting women workers to improve working conditions.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Beginning in 1909, league members marched alongside other striking workers during the garment industry strikes. For the two years that the strike\u00a0lasted, the league worked to set up strike funds and organized boycotts of clothing manufacturers who did not work with the strikers.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in 1911\u00a0killed\u00a0146 workers, mostly women and girls as young as 14.\u00a0WTUL\u00a0conducted an investigation\u00a0of factory conditions\u00a0following the fire and\u00a0helped\u00a0establish\u00a0new labor regulations\u00a0that\u00a0would eventually lead to the creation of the American Society of Safety Professionals.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">By the 1920s, WTUL\u2019s actions under the presidency of Margaret Dreier Robins helped to\u00a0establish\u00a0a minimum wage, eight-hour workdays, and the abolition of child labor. However, during\u00a0the Great Depression, the league was\u00a0hard hit\u00a0financially,\u00a0and its\u00a0membership\u00a0dwindled. The\u00a0WTUL dissolved by the 1950s, but its legacy of\u00a0nearly half\u00a0a century of activism paved the way for the organized labor movement that is thriving in states like New York today.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>November 7, 2025 &#8212; In the late 1800s and early 1900s, working conditions for most in the United States were fraught with danger and low wages. For women workers, that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"division":[],"allowed_regions":[],"allowed_divisions":[],"class_list":["post-8071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","issue-volume-43-no-10"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.6 (Yoast SEO v27.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Women\u2019s Trade Union League rises in November 1903 - PEF Communicator<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/issue\/volume-43-no-10\/womens-trade-union-league-rises-in-november-1903\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women\u2019s Trade Union League rises in November 1903\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 7, 2025 &#8212; In the late 1800s and early 1900s, working conditions for most in the United States were fraught with danger and low wages. 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