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Henry, Alice, 1857-1943

"The Trade Union Woman"

One hears of occasional instances
in which even children have banded together and gone on strike.
School-children have done it. The little button-sewers of Muscatine,
Iowa, formed a juvenile union during the long strike of 1911. But
these are such exceptional instances that they can hardly count in
normal times. And that such a large body of children and very young
girls are included among department-store employes adds immensely to
the difficulty of gaining over the grown-up women to organization.
[Illustration: A BINDERY
Hand folders on platform. Machine folder and hand gatherers below.]

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ONE OF THE LARGEST AND BEST EQUIPPED WAIST
AND CLOAK FACTORIES IN NEW YORK CITY]
Perhaps at some future time children may mature mentally earlier. If
along with this, education is more efficient, and the civic duty of a
common responsibility for the good of all is taught universally in our
schools, even the child at fourteen may become class-conscious, and
willing to fight and struggle for a common aim.


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