The Women's Trade Union League and American Feminism

Abstract

The Women's Trade Union League provides an illuminating historical case study of the response of a certain group of women in the early twentieth century to the issues of feminism and class consciousness. As a mixed-class organization of women concerned about the problems of female workers during a period of an active male-dominated labor movement and a middle-class-dominated feminist movement, the WTUL was structurally in an extremely interesting position. As an organization it was not concerned with theoretical issues of feminism and class identity, but it did explicitly and consistently define itself as the women's branch of the labor movement and the industrial branch of the women's movement.