Mrs. D.W. Knefler, of St. Louis, did pioneering work for
girlish trade unionism in that conservative city.
Miss Gillespie, the Secretary of the Boston Women's Trade Union
League, has been for years its main standby. Working in cooeperation
with the young president, Miss Julia O'Connor, of the Telephone
Operators, her influence in the labor movement is an important factor
in the Massachusetts situation. She is a member of the State Minimum
Wage Commission.
Young as is the League, some most heroic members have already passed
into the unseen. Adelaide Samuels was a teacher in the public schools
who, in the day of very small things for the New York League, acted as
treasurer and chairman of the label committee. In her scant leisure
she worked patiently towards the end that girls in the poorest trades
should win for themselves the power of making the collective bargain.
She died before she could have seen any tangible results from her
efforts.
Hannah Hennessy, who carried away from the first interstate conference
in Chicago a vision in her heart of a Women's Trade Union League in
every large city, a few years later laid down her life as the result
of the hardships endured while picketing on behalf of the Marx and
Haas strikers.
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