Women's Trade Union League of New York Records

The records of the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) of New York constitute one of the largest surviving collections of source material on the history of the WTUL. The material spans the entirety of the organizations existence, from 1903-1955. They are particularly valuable as providing the only extensive documentation of a local League. The collection contains meeting minutes, correspondence, annual reports, monthly bulletins, newspaper clippings, and other ephemera. The collection also includes papers from the presidencies of Maud Swartz and Rose Schneiderman and the papers of special interest groups that members worked for, including the New York Conference for Unemployment Insurance Legislation, the New York Joint Committee for Ratification of the Child Labor Amendment, and the Campaign Committee against the Equal Rights Amendment.

Since much of the New York League's effort focused on legislation, the records provide insights into the legislative goals and tactics of a social reform organization, during the 1920s and later. There is also a good deal in the collection about labor education, both the League's own evening classes and such ventures as Brookwood Labor College and the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers. There is also correspondence on broader social movements: labor participation in third parties, efforts to ratify the Child Labor Amendment, the campaign during the depression years for social security legislation, the sustained opposition of many women reformers and activists to the proposed Equal Rights Amendment because of its impact on protective legislation for women workers.

The collection is also a source of biographical and personal data. It contains little information about Mary Dreier, from whose presidency only a few stray letters remain, or about Leonora O'Reilly. It is a bit stronger on Pauline Newman, whose membership spalled almost the whole history of the League; occasional letters from her are scattered throughout the correspondence. The collection contains a significant amount of material from Schneiderman and Swartz, for the latter, it casts light on her relations with her predecessor as national president, Margaret Dreier Robins, and with the League's national secretary, Elisabeth Christman.

This collection also contains a card catalogue, photographs, and a banner.

Adapted from Nancy Schrom Dye, "The Women's Trade Union League of New York," in The Women's Trade Union League and its Principal Members, ed. by Edward T. James (Woodridge, Connecticut, 1981) 179-208.