For women working in labor reform and in the trade union movement, the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) provided a community of personal friendship and support as well as an effective organization. They often worked together in other organizations, as when several of the WTUL activists helped form the NAACP. The story of the WTUL is not complete without the rich and varied biographies of these women, a few of whom are listed here:
- Addams, Jane
- Balch, Emily Greene
- Beard, Mary Ritter
- Breckenridge, Sophonisba Preston
- Cohn, Fannia
- Christman, Elisabeth
- Diaz, Abby Morton
- Dreier, Mary
- Franklin, Miles
- Freitas, Mary
- Gillespie, Mabel Edna
- Haley, Margaret
- Hamilton, Alice
- Henrotin, Ellen Martin
- Henry, Alice
- Ickes, Anna Wilmarth Thompson
- Jacobs (Bellanaca), Dorothy
- Kehew, Mary Morton
- Kelley, Florence
- Lindstrom, Helen
- Marot, Helen
- McDowell, Mary Eliza
- Miller, Frieda Segekle
- Nestor, Agnes
- Newman, Pauline
- O'Reilly, Leonora
- O'Sullivan, Mary Kenney
- Parker, Julia Sarsfield O'Connor
- Robins, Margaret Dreier
- Roosevelt, Eleanor
- Schneiderman, Rose
- Shavelson, Clara Lemlich
- Stevens, Alzina
- Swartz, Maude O'Farrell
- Wald, Lillian D.
- Walling, William - co-founder
- Woerishoffer, Emma Carola
For access to offline resources for the serious researcher:
- Jane Addams Collection, Swarthmore College Peace Collection: Serious research into women of the WTUL will take you to the Jane Addams papers.
- Papers of the Women's Trade Union League & Its Leaders: 133-reel microfilm series which features papers from the WTUL nationally and in Boston and New York, plus individual papers of Margaret Dreier Robins, Mary Anderson, Leonora O'Reilly, Rose Schneiderman and Agnes Nestor, plus an autobiography of Mary Kenney O'Sullivan. Check with your library to get access to the microfilm.
Sources consulted for this series include:
- Bernikow, Louise. The American Women's Almanac: An Inspiring and Irreverent Women's History. 1997. ( compare prices)
- Cullen-Dupont, Kathryn. The Encyclopedia of Women's History in America. 1996. 1996. (compare prices)
- Eisner, Benita, editor. The Lowell Offering: Writings by New England Mill Women (1840-1845). 1997. ( compare prices )
- Orleck, Annelise. Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965. 1995. ( compare prices)
- Flexner, Eleanor. Century of Struggle: the Women's Rights Movement in the United States. 1959, 1976. ( compare prices)
- Foner, Philip S. Women and the American Labor Movement: From Colonial Times to the Eve of World War I. 1979. ( compare prices)
- Schneider, Dorothy and Carl J. Schneider. The ABC-CLIO Companion to Women in the Workplace. 1993. ( compare prices)
Text copyright 1999-2006 © Jone Johnson Lewis .
