PATTERNS OF WORKERS’ EDUCATION

 

all working women were in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and
two-thirds of the women employed in manufacture were located in the 14
states north of Maryland and the Ohio River, and East of the Mississippi.”
The situation in 1938 was different. Industries employing women were
moving from the large cities into new regions of the South and toward the
West. This trend is likely to affect the recruiting procedure of the Hudson
Shore School. Not only the changing location of industry but also the rise of
sectional schools for workers certainly may be influential. The School may
realize, as did its predecessor, that national recruiting is affected by the cost
and time of travel. District committees had often sent a majority of candi-
dates to sectional schools rather than to the more distant national one. A
secretary of the San Francisco Y.W.C.A. has expressed the opinion that stu-
dents from the Pacific Coast may well attend their own educational institution
instead of coming as far East as Bryn Mawr. In the Middle-West, Chicago
and other cities have reported that it is easier to secure recruits for Wisconsin
partly because of the distance involved. Southern areas have found their
school more within their reach financially. The development of new schools
for workers throughout the country, therefore, seems to meet in part the
problems raised by the changing location of industries employing women.

The initial policy of the Bryn Mawr School was to admit an equal number
of non-unionized and unionized workers. Representation of different philoso-
phies was desired in the latter category. Also within the organized group of
students, women labor leaders were to be included. As outlined in 1922,
educational opportunity was to be given to women not necessarily employed
with the tools of a trade but integrated closely with the workers’ life. The
balance between unionized and non-unionized workers has been difficult to

attain. In the early days, a minority of students were interested in the labor

movement, but by 1934, two-thirds of the School was comprised of active
union members.” Two years later the percentage was approximately the same
but in 1938 it had advanced to 84 per cent. Certain textile and garment
workers’ organizations were widely represented in the School and since 1934
an increasing number of students have belonged to industrial unions.

* Grace Hutchins, Women Who Work, N. Y., International Publishers, 1934, p. 27.
* Hilda W. Smith, Member of the Board of Directors of the School, Policies of the
Bryn Mawr Summer School, March, 1935.

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