As to legislation, the steady improvement brought about through the limitation of hours, through modern sanitary regulations, and through child-labor laws, has all along been supported by a handful of trade-union women, working especially through the national organizations, in which, as members, they made their influence felt.
There were always brave souls among the women, and chivalrous souls, here and there among the men, and the struggles made to form and keep alive tiny local unions we shall probably never know, for no complete records exist. The only way in which the ground can be even partially covered is by a series of studies in each locality, such as the one made by Miss Lillian Matthews, through her work in San Francisco.
In this connection it must be remembered that those uprisings among women of the last century, were after all local and limited in their effects and range. Most of them bore no relation to national organization of even the trade involved, still less to an all-embracing, national labor organization, such as the American Federation of Labor. In these earlier stages, when organization of both men and women was mainly local, women's influence, when felt at all, was felt strongly within the locality affected, and it is therefore only there that we hear about it.
Still, twenty-five years ago, the day of national organization had already dawned. To organize a trade on a national scale is at best a slow process, and it naturally takes a much longer time for women to influence and enter into the administrative work of a national union, than of a separate local union, which perhaps they have helped to found. They are therefore too apt to lose touch with the big national union, and even with its local branch in their own city. It is almost like the difference between the small home kitchen, with whose possibilities a woman is familiar, and the great food-producing factory, run on a business scale, whose management seems to her something far-removed and unfamiliar. It was not until 1904, when the National Women's Trade Union League was formed out of unions with women members, that women workers, as women, can be said to have begun national organization at all. The account of that body is reserved for another chapter.
Meanwhile as instances of the many determined localized efforts among women to raise wages and better conditions, there follow here outlines of the formation of the Working Women's Society in New York, the successful organization of the Laundry Workers in San Francisco, and of the splendid but defeated struggle of the girls in the packing plants of Chicago.
In 1886 a small body of working-women, of whom Leonora O'Reilly was one, began holding meetings on the. East Side of New York City, to inquire into and talk over bad conditions, and see how they could be remedied. They were shortly joined by some women of position, who saw in this spontaneous effort one promising remedy, at least for some of the gross evils of underpayment, overwork and humiliation suffered by the working-women and girls of New York, in common with those in every industrial center. Among those other women who thus gave their support, and gave it in the truly democratic spirit, were the famous Josephine Shaw Lowell, Mrs. Robert Abbé, Miss Arria Huntingdon and Miss L.S. Perkins, who was the first treasurer of the little group. Mrs. Lowell's long experience in public work, and her unusual executive ability were of much value at first. The result of the meetings was the formation of the Working Women's Society. They held their first public meeting on February 2, 1888. In their announcement of principles they declared "the need of a central society, which shall gather together those already devoted to the cause of organization among women, shall collect statistics and publish facts, shall be ready to furnish information and advice, and, above all, shall continue and increase agitation on this subject." Among their specific objects were "to found trade organizations, where they do not exist, and to encourage and assist existing labor organizations, to the end of increasing wages and shortening hours." Another object was to promote the passing and the enforcement of laws for the protection of women and children in factories, and yet another the following up of cases of injustice in the shops.
The Working Women's Society gave very valuable aid in the feather-workers' strike. Without the Society's backing the women could never have had their case put before the public as it was. Again, it was through their efforts, chiefly, that the law was passed in 1890, providing for women factory inspectors in the state of New York. It is stated that this was the first law of the kind in the world, and that the British law, passed shortly afterwards, was founded upon its provisions.
Not limiting itself to helping in direct labor organization, and legislation, the Working Women's Society undertook among the more fortunate classes a campaign of sorely needed education, and made upon them, at the same time, a claim for full and active coöperation in the battle for industrial justice.
This was done through the foundation of the Consumers' League of New York, now a branch of the National Consumers' League, which has done good and faithful service in bringing home to many some sense of the moral responsibility of the purchaser in maintaining oppressive industrial conditions, while, on the other hand it has persistently striven for better standards of labor legislation. It was through the Consumers' League, and especially through the ability and industry of its notable officer, Josephine Goldmark, that the remarkable mass of information on the toxic effects of fatigue, and the legislation to check overwork already in force in other countries was brought together in such complete form, as to enable Louis Brandeis to successfully defend the ten-hour law for women, first for Oregon, and afterwards for Illinois. The Working Women's Society did its work at a time when organization for women was even more unpopular than today. It did much to lessen that unpopularity, and to hearten its members for the never-ending struggle. All its agitation told, and prepared the way for the Women's Trade Union League, which, a decade later, took up the very same task.
In the year 1900, the status of the steam-laundry-workers of San Francisco was about as low as could possibly be imagined. White men and girls had come into the trade about 1888, taking the place of the Chinese, who had been the first laundrymen on the West Coast. Regarding their treatment, Miss Lillian Ruth Matthews writes: