In 1827, after the repeal of the Combination Laws, when the Grand General Union of the United Kingdom was being started by the cotton spinners, the women and girls were urged to form separate organizations; and though these organizations did not last, it seems appropriate that one of the earliest indications of women's trade unions should be found in the cotton textiles trade, which on the lines of united enrollment now includes in its membership three-fourths of the organized women of Great Britain. Anyone who has seen a Lancashire demonstration with its audience of thousands of trade unionists and file after file of women and girls among the men's ranks, each wearing the badge of her union-the cotton bud-has had an object lesson in the possibilities of organization among female workers.

In spite of this early effort among the cotton textile operatives and several sporadic attempts in Scotland, it was not until 1874 that a successful attempt was made to organize the women in industries in Great Britain. On September 12 of that year "the first society formed for women," what is now known as the "Women's Trade Union League," was started.

The organizer of this society had worked in the bookbinding trade in London, and out of her experience had come the desire to formulate some scheme to help the working women of England to help themselves. Yet in those days even in England none dared speak openly of trade unionism among women.

To have attempted a militant organization of women wage-earners would have meant disaster, since it would have awakened the fear

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of competition in the men's unions, thus incurring their opposition, and would also have aroused public opinion which was averse to women's self-assertion in any form. Furthermore, at that time trade unionism in itself meant to the average person the use of illegal methods, and to the more educated it was an irremissible sin against the inspired ordinances of political economy.

Strangely enough the model for the first women's trade union in Great Britain was found in America. A casual attendance upon a meeting of the Female Umbrella Makers' Union in New York in 1873 revealed to the founder of the British movement the success and force of a body of women workers banded together to accumulate a sick benefit fund, and on her return to England she started an organization under the title of the "Women's Protective and Provident League."

The title, "Women's Protective and Provident League," was considered safe in that it did not suggest to the casual hearer any offensive and defensive character of union, but the decisive tenor of the organization may be gathered from the following resolution adopted at the first meeting:(")

"That one of the objects of the association shall be to enable women earning their own livelihood to combine to protect their interests." And the last resolution offered at this meeting was:

“That it shall be one of the objects of the association to provide a benefit fund for assistance in sickness and other contingencies."

The abstract of rules by which these early societies were governed furnished a more specific disclaimer of any intention to establish a hostile alignment of employers and women workers:

1. Women 16 years of age and upward working at any branch of the trade shall be eligible to become members.

2. After the society shall have been formed 6 months a candidate for membership shall be recommended by two members, who shall vouch that she is a competent workwoman.

3. Entrance fee from 2s. to 1s. [49 to 24 cents], varying in different societies, payable by installments of 4d. [8 cents] per week; and subscription 2d. [4 cents] per week.

4. A member when out of work or in sickness (excepting confinements) shall receive 5s. [$1.22] per week for not more than 8 weeks in 1 year and for not less than 1 week.

5. If any member be found to have been in any way imposing on the funds of the society, or defrauding an employer, she shall be suspended from all benefits until the next quarterly meeting.

This sick-benefit fund was the salient feature in the propaganda in the different trades, and it was not until 1889 that sufficient courage was gathered to substitute the words "Trade Union" for "Protective," and several years elapsed until " Provident " was abandoned

a First Annual Report of the Women's Protective and Provident League, 1875.

and the "Women's Trade Union League" became a confessed agency for the cause of industrial organizations for the advancement and defense of female labor.

This league has since its formation in 1874 until the present day supplied the machinery for dealing with the unorganized women wage-earners. Its methods and scope of work will be treated later.

The first effort of the league was to reach out and bind together the women employed in the printing trade. These women nad strongly felt the want of a provident society during a trade depression three years before, but the men in the trade refused to admit them in their league because they claimed there was no provision for the admission of women, and also at that time women's wages were seldom more than one-half those of men, and women would have been unable to pay the subscriptions.

The appeal for a separate organization among the women met with a hearty response. Three hundred employed in folding, sewing, and other branches of the bookbinding trade attended the first meeting and 66 immediately enrolled as members with a subscription of 2d. (4 cents) per week, and an entrance fee of 1s. (24 cents). At the end of the first year the membership had increased to 275 with funds amounting to £80 ($389.32), and this Society of Women Employed in Bookbinding is still extant, while over 20 of the original members, all now over 60 years of age, hold monthly reunions in the rooms of the Women's Trade Union League.

But agitation has never been the policy of the society. It has refused to join with the men in making demands upon the employers; its representatives at trade union congresses and elsewhere have steadily insisted on legal restrictions upon labor; it has not shown itself anxious to seize what the men regarded as opportunities to make itself felt.

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Perhaps the union has been too willing to make requests to good employers for better conditions, and too timorous in helping to level up the general conditions of the trade. But this union has never reached that point of strength when it could bring pressure to bear on the trade for the mutual advantage of the good employer and the woman worker. As a consequence the good relations between the men and the woman in the trade have not always been maintained, and there was considerable ill feeling between the two sections during the eight-hours' agitation from 1891 to 1894. It should be noted, however, that the sentiment among the women as a whole was friendly during the eight-hours' agitation, although the society was taking no part in it officially.

At the present moment this society is regarded by both men and women mainly as a benefit club. In this respect it has been most successful and has paid with excellent regularity. (a)

What Mr. Macdonald says of the society of women employed in bookbinding holds true also of all the other early societies estab

" Women in the Printing Trades, by J. Ramsay Macdonald, pp. 37, 38.

lished under the auspices of the Women's Protective and Provident League. (") They were not fighting organizations, their leaders believing that to attempt too much is to weaken.

Although the unions were often the outgrowth of a grievance on the part of the workers, in the early records of the league there is little evidence of the belligerency having a favorable termination or of being continued after the women had united into a trade society.

In September, 1879, a society having been formed among the cotton operatives in Bristol, the women went out on strike, but the men refused to aid them and they were obliged to return to work at a reduction. In this same year a women's union at the Royal Army Clothing Factory, at Pimlico, was formed to resist a reduction in piecework prices of from 15 to 20 per cent and the withdrawal of home work. A deputation of 1,000 women unionists went to the doors of the House of Commons and several women from the factory gave evidence.

In 1876 the movement had gained such proportions that delegates from three women's trade societies-shirtmakers, women bookbinders, and the upholsteresses' union-were admitted to the Eighth Annual Trades Union Congress held at Glasgow, and at the meeting of the Trades Union Council, in 1879, five women representing unions were not only present, but took an active part in the proceedings. A resolution offered by them for the appointment of additional inspectors, women as well as men, under the factory and workshop act, was approved and carried.

The woman trade-unionist had begun to play her part in the vicissitudes and development of the trade-union movement.

By the early eighties most of the separate organizations of women in large industries had died out, being superseded by co-unionism, and from this period the woman trade-unionist became an economic factor to be reckoned with in trade disputes and labor legislation.

In 1885 the Women's Trade Union League made the first effort to compile a log book with the hope of securing a uniform price for similar work in the trades.

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At the trades union congress of 1889 a resolution was offered that in the opinion of this congress it is desirable, in the interest both of men and women, that in trades where women do the same work as men they shall receive the same payment."

"According to the First Annual Report of the Women's Protective and Provident League there had been five flourishing unions affiliated with the league within the year. A few months after the formation of the women bookbinders' union a meeting of 400 women comprising representatives from dressmakers, milliners, and mantle makers combined into another society. In March, 1875, the women employed in the work of binding, sewing, and trimming men's hats established a society. Next, women in the upholstery trades formed a union and affiliated themselves with the National League. The fifth society formed was of shirt and collar makers.