Tag: Domestic Workers

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for July 1901, Part II: Reportedly Visited Chicago as Freind of Servant Girls; Organizing Efforts Ongoing

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote re Mother Jones, None too low or high, Ipl Jr p3, Jan 21, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 10, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1901, Part II
Reportedly Visited Chicago as Friend of Servant Girls

From the Washington Evening Star of July 6, 1901:

SERVANT GIRLS TO FORM A UNION.
———-
“Mother” Jones of Miners’ Strike Fame
the Organizer.

MJ in Chg, Montpelier Vt Argus Patriot p4, July 10, 1901

CHICAGO, July 6.-The Record-Herald says:

“Mother” Jones, who did so much to encourage the coal miners in their strike in Pennsylvania a year ago, holding meetings and addressing them wherever a few could be got together, and who since has assisted the striking silk workers in New Jersey and the carpet weavers in Philadelphia to stand out for their demands, has been in Chicago the past few weeks assisting the committee of the Women’s Trade Union Label League to organize the servant girls. As a result of the work done by the committee with the aid of “Mother” Jones, several hundred servant girls have signified their intention of becoming charter members of the first servant girls’ union of Chicago, which will be formed on Thursday night.

[Photograph added.]

From The Chicago Daily News of July 11, 1901:

COMES TO HELP DOMESTICS
———-
“Mother” Jones Will Lend a Hand
in Forming a Union.

Promoters of the Chicago Domestics’ union are surrounding their actions with an air of secrecy. “Mother” Jones, a union worker with a national reputation, who arrived in Chicago a short time ago, it is said, has rendered valuable assistance to the local organizers, and a meeting has been scheduled for tonight at the Masonic temple.

The promoters of the union, however, refuse to say just where the meeting will be held, and it is rumored it will not be at the temple, but at some secluded spot on the west side.

———-

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for July 1901, Part II: Reportedly Visited Chicago as Freind of Servant Girls; Organizing Efforts Ongoing” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1901, Part I: Victorious Scranton Silk Mill Strikers, “Gave Their Masters a Good Hammering”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, St L Lbr, Apr 13, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 9, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1901, Part I
Found Describing Victory of Scranton Silk Mill Strikers 

From the International Socialist Review of June 1901:

World of Labor Max Hayes, ISR p813, June 1901

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

The silk weavers’ strike at Scranton, Pa., which was directed by Mother Jones, and which has been pending for many months, was won by the workers, while the strike at Paterson, N. J., was lost, owing largely to the fact that the courts issued an injunction against the women and children, and the police assaulted them for attempting to persuade scabs to refuse to work. “Mother,” besides organizing for the unions, is now putting in some spare time in forming unions of domestic servants.

—————

Editorial, ISR p822, June 1901

We have just received the following letter from “Mother Jones,” which we must again offer in place of the promised article. We feel sure that our readers will appreciate the reason for the delay:

Dear Comrades:

I owe you an apology for not writing to you before. You know I had a strike of 4,000 children on my hands for three months and could not spare a moment. If that strike was lost it meant untold oppression for these little helpless things. They came out victorious and gave their masters a good hammering. I could not write a thing for June, but will for July.

I have had a very hard winter’s work, but have done just as much for socialism as if I were writing articles. One very cheering feature is that the cause is growing everywhere. I have been landing plenty of literature In the hands of the boys.

[Drawing of Mother Jones added.]

Flower doodle graphic, ISR p824, June 1901

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1901, Part I: Victorious Scranton Silk Mill Strikers, “Gave Their Masters a Good Hammering”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1901, Part II: Found Organizing Servant Girls of Pennsylvania and Miners of West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, re Servant Girls Organizing, Kvl TN Sntl p5, May 23, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 12, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1901, Part II
Found Organizing in Pennsylvania and West Virginia

From The Muncie Daily Times of May 16, 1901:

SERVANT GIRLS’ UNION. 
———-
Mother Jones’ Rules For Kitchen
and Nursery Work.

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

“Mother” Jones is preparing to organize a servant girls’ union at Wilkes-barre, Pa., as well as in Scranton and has drawn up these rules, says the New York World, which the union will enforce at each, “place:”

Ten hours’ work a day and no more.

An increase in wages according to the the size of the house and the work required.

No one shall work for less than $3 a week.

Cooks shall not act as ladies maids or take care of babies.

Nursegirls shall not be required to act as cooks.

It shall not be necessary to stay in nights while the mistress goes out.

If more than ten hours work a day shall be required, a double shift must be employed.

An amusement room shall be furnished for the girls so that they shall not be required to sit in the kitchen all the time.

Visitors shall be allowed to call upon them any night they are off duty.

Wages must be paid every week.

They shall have the privilege of putting their clothes in the family wash.

Their meals shall be the same as those of the family.

Bedchambers shall be large, airy and well heated.

—————

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1901, Part I: Found Standing with Silk Mill Strikers and Servant Girls of Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Child Labor Silk Mills, WB Dly Ns p1, May 11, 1901—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 11, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1901, Part I
Found Standing with Silk Mill Strikers of Pennsylvania

From The Scranton Republican of May 2, 1901:

SILK MILL STRIKERS
———-
Girls at the Klotz Works
Back at Their Frames
-Mill at Taylor Still Idle.
———-

MOTHER JONES’ BIRTHDAY 
———-

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

Today all is serene at the silk mills of Scranton. Klotz mill, the first to go on strike, resumed operations yesterday. The reason they did not start Tuesday was because the proprietor persisted in retaining Emily Mailet, a forewoman who was unsatisfactory to the strikers. A committee from the Klotz local waited on Mr. Klotz Wednesday afternoon with the result that he agreed to recognize the union, allowed them the 8 and 12 per cent. advance, and grunted the usual half holiday for five months of the warm weather. Besides this, he said that if the action of the forewoman in question should result in any further trouble he would investigate the matter thoroughly, and discharge her if the case so demanded.

[…..]

It is an interesting fact that yesterday marked a complete resumption of work among the Scranton silk mills, and it was also the birthday of “Mother” Jones, to whose vigorous efforts among the strikers this resumption is largely due. Yesterday marked the 58th milestone in her journey of life, and she said that before two years more shall have passed and she will have reached her 60th year, she expects to fight many another battle in the cause of labor. It is remarkable that a woman of her age, who has gone through so many excitable experiences, should be hail and hearty at the dawn of her 59th year and possess the vigorous mind that “Mother” Jones does.

Last evening she opened the entertainment of Harvey’s local in the “New hall” on Pittston avenue, and received hearty applause from the audience.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1901, Part I: Found Standing with Silk Mill Strikers and Servant Girls of Pennsylvania” →

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn for Chicago Propaganda League on Working Class Women and Suffrage

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Pious women, Servant girls, Bff Cr NY p6, Mar 1, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 10, 1909
Chicago, Illinois – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks for Propaganda League

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of February 27, 1909:

PROPAGANDEA LEAGUE LECTURES.

EGF, Socialist Woman Cv, Dec 1908

Sunday evening, February 21, Elizabeth G. Flynn gave a very instructive lecture under the auspices of the Chicago Propaganda League, at 55 North Clark street, on the subject, “Why Women of the Working Class Need Not Be Interested in Woman Suffrage.”

The speaker argued not so much against woman suffrage in itself, as against the emphasis now being placed by Socialists upon a question of secondary importance. She pointed out that woman’s activity in the labor movement promised more fruitful results along the line of building up the economic organization, by which alone conditions in industry could be improved and rendered more nearly equal for both men and women, and the danger of “sex war” averted, which was one of the grave possibilities of the agitation merely for “equal political rights.”

The meeting was well attended, and interest manifest throughout the lecture and the discussion which followed.

Next Sunday, February 28, at the same hour (8 o’clock) and place (55 North Clark street). Theodore Hertz will speak on “Tendencies in the European Trades Unions towards Industrial Unionism.” The change in dates for these two lectures was made on account of the fact that Miss Flynn will speak in Buffalo on the 28th.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones 1898, Part I: January-May; Found in St. Louis, Missouri

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Perish in Sight of Plenty, St L Rpb p14, May 12, 1898—–

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 10, 1899
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for the Year 1898, Part I

Mother Jones, Factory Girls, St L Rpb p14, May 12, 1898
The St. Louis Republic
May 12, 1898

During February of 1898, Mother Jones was found in St. Louis, Missouri, preparing for a Conference of Labor and Labor Reform Organizations scheduled to be held in that city on May 2nd. She was also found advocating for Domestic Workers in that city who were seeking to establish “a home of their own.”

Mother departed St. Louis in early March and headed out on a tour of Eastern cities in order to “stir up sentiment among the several reform organizations in behalf of the reform convention” to be held in May. Mother was back in St. Louis in time to present at that convention which was, sadly, not well attended. Nevertheless, Mother was soon busy attempting to organize factory girls, of whom, she declared:

The factory girls should be organized because their condition should be improved. This can be effected by organization, and by no other means. The girls are, as rule, underpaid, kept in cramped, unhealthy quarters, and ground down till their young lives have been dwarfed and stunted. Through the children the world is made what it is. In the unions they could be educated how to better themselves.

I have been all through the factories of this and other cities, and find conditions in them such that the lives of these children will be shortened many years by having worked in them. We have war abroad and war at home. The conflict with Spain is not half so grinding upon humanity as the battle for bread. A few hundred go down in a naval battle; thousands perish beneath the grinding tread of greed every day. We have reconcentrados in our own country-they are the poor, without wealth or friends, who perish in sight of plenty.

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Hellraisers Journal: How A Cold Storage Egg Inspired Organization of Domestic Workers’ IU, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Thursday September 28, 1916
Denver, Colorado – Jane Street on Housemaids’ Union

Jane Street, Baltimore Sun, Sept 24, 1916

The Denver’s Domestic Workers’ Industrial Union, Local No. 113 of the Industrial Workers of the World was founded last spring by Miss Jane Street. Today we offer part two (of two parts) of an article about that union and its tactics from The Washington Post of September 24, 1916:

How A Cold Storage Egg Started
The Servant Girls Union (Part II)
—–

Miss Jane Street, organizer of the Housemaids’ Union, speaking of its purposes, said for publication in this newspaper:

Of all the abused people on earth none is worse treated than the general housemaid. The majority of housewives follow an aged tradition of looking down on those who serve them and their families and refuse to practice patience or give counsel or regard the women they hire as human beings with like impulses, like passions, like aims and hopes as their own.
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Hellraisers Journal: How A Cold Storage Egg Inspired Organization of Domestic Workers’ I. U.

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday September 27, 1916
Denver, Colorado – Domestic Workers and the Blacklist

Jane Street, Baltimore Sun, Sept 24, 1916

The Denver’s Domestic Workers’ Industrial Union, Local No. 113 of the Industrial Workers of the World was founded last spring by Miss Jane Street. Today we offer part one (of two parts) of an article about that union and its tactics from The Washington Post of September 24, 1916:

How A Cold Storage Egg Started
The Servant Girls Union
—–

In Denver, Colo., looms at the present moment happy promise of a solution of the vexatious servant girl problem. How happy that promise is will be seen in the fact that a housemaids’ union now organizing in that city will be conducted on lines which have the frank approval of Denver’s most prominent hostess and society leader.
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: How A Cold Storage Egg Inspired Organization of Domestic Workers’ I. U.” →