PATTERNS OF WORKERS’ EDUCATION

 

INCREASE OF UNIONIZED WOMEN

Percentage of Gainfully
Year Number Unionized Employed Women
1910 74,246 9%
1920 366,400 4.3%
1924 214,049 2.5%
1927 256,700 24%
1938 800,000 74%

That members of certain trade unions have been well represented in the
School has been natural. Since recruiting of students has been focused on the
Middle Atlantic, New England and Middle-Western areas, workers from the
garment, textile, and boot and shoe industries have applied. For example, by
1929 the Amalgamated Clothing Workers’ Union had organized’ many women
in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Rochester, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleve-
land, Boston, St. Louis and Milwaukee. Since 1934, the textile and garment
organizations have greatly augmented the number of women upon their rolls.
In that year, for example, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union
had 80,000 female members. Three years later, there were about 200,000
women in the union, comprising three-fourths of the total membership. By
1937, women constituted one-half of the 300,000 members of the A.C.W.A.
Specifically, they formed about 85 per cent of unionized shirtmakers and 70
per cent of organized laundry workers.”

Large numbers of the newly unionized women belonged to the Congress of
Industrial Organizations. The American Federation of Labor had barred
many of them from membership, claiming as a reason that their jobs were
unskilled and semi-skilled. Although the Federation had hired special organ-
izers to work among women in 1918 and 1926, by 1934 their proportion was
still small.* Because of this, the Bryn Mawr School has found equal recruit-
ing from craft and industrial groups difficult to attain.

Leadership opportunities for women trade unionists also were unbalanced.
The A.F. of L. did not heed the plea reiterated in 1935 that women should be
given responsible positions, but at present certain trade unions in the C.LO.
report increased leadership among them. Although the clothing branch of
the Amalgamated Clothing Workers does not offer much opportunity, women
hold positions as business agents, secretaries, and local officials in its cotton

* Pritchard, op. cit., pp. 27-28.
* Hutchins, op. cit., p. 260.

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