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Henry, Alice, 1857-1943

"The Trade Union Woman"

The handicrafts of old, the weaving and the
carving and the pottery, have through a thousand inventions become
specialized, and the work of the single operative has been divided
up into a hundred processes. These are the conditions, and this the
environment under which the workers most frequently organize. The
operations have become more or less defined and standardized, and the
operatives are more readily grouped and classified. Also, even amid
all the noise and clatter of the factory, they have opportunity for
becoming acquainted, sometimes while working together, or at the noon
hour, or when going to or coming from work. There are still few enough
women engaged in factory work who have come into trade unions, but the
path has at least been cleared, both by the numbers of men who have
shown the way, and by the increasing independence of women themselves.
Similar reasoning applies to the workers in the culinary trades. These
also are the modern, specialized forms of the old domestic arts of
cooking and otherwise preparing and serving food.


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