educative influence of the Knights of Labor, 1881 to date, and the
present development under the predominant leadership of the American
Federation of Labor.




THE TRADE UNION WOMAN


I

EARLY TRADE UNIONS AMONG WOMEN 1825-1840


The earliest factory employment to engage large numbers of women was
the cotton industry of New England, and the mill hands of that day
seem to have been entirely native-born Americans. The first power loom
was set up in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1814, and the name of the
young woman weaver who operated it was Deborah Skinner. In 1817 there
were three power looms in Fall River, Massachusetts; the weavers were
Sallie Winters, Hannah Borden and Mary Healy.

The first form of trade-union activity among wage-earning women in the
United States was the local strike. The earliest of these of which
there is any record was but a short-lived affair. It was typical,
nevertheless, of the sudden, impulsive uprising of the unorganized
everywhere. It would hardly be worth recording, except that in such
hasty outbursts of indignation against the so unequal distribution of
the burdens of industry lies the germ of the whole labor movement.