Not limiting itself to helping in direct labor organization, and
legislation, the Working Women's Society undertook among the more
fortunate classes a campaign of sorely needed education, and made upon
them, at the same time, a claim for full and active coöperation in the
battle for industrial justice.

This was done through the foundation of the Consumers' League of New
York, now a branch of the National Consumers' League, which has done
good and faithful service in bringing home to many some sense of
the moral responsibility of the purchaser in maintaining oppressive
industrial conditions, while, on the other hand it has persistently
striven for better standards of labor legislation. It was through the
Consumers' League, and especially through the ability and industry of
its notable officer, Josephine Goldmark, that the remarkable mass of
information on the toxic effects of fatigue, and the legislation
to check overwork already in force in other countries was brought
together in such complete form, as to enable Louis Brandeis to
successfully defend the ten-hour law for women, first for Oregon, and
afterwards for Illinois. The Working Women's Society did its work at a
time when organization for women was even more unpopular than today.
It did much to lessen that unpopularity, and to hearten its members
for the never-ending struggle. All its agitation told, and prepared
the way for the Women's Trade Union League, which, a decade later,
took up the very same task.

In the year 1900, the status of the steam-laundry-workers of San
Francisco was about as low as could possibly be imagined. White men
and girls had come into the trade about 1888, taking the place of
the Chinese, who had been the first laundrymen on the West Coast.