“The men are not to do all the striking. The young lady operatives in our factories wish it understood that they are not to be overlooked in the matter of wage competition, and have given evidence that when it comes to standing up for their rights they are not behind the Crispins1 and the K’s of L2 of the sterner sex.”
“Owing to the frequent change of patterns in the work at Drew & Selby’s shoe factory this fall, the girls who do the fine stitching, (called ‘beaders’) have been compelled to perform considerable extra labor, and as they work by the piece they naturally became annoyed and uneasy, and wondered if the proprietors proposed to make them do extra work without extra pay. They thought and thought, and the more they thought over the matter the more worried they became and the more they were impressed with the idea that the time had come for them to strike for their altars and their fires. They had no union and no organization, but each feminine heart was resolved on victory or death. They were going to have their rights peaceably if possible, but if not peaceably- then look out! One pay-day rolled around and no extra pay; then another pay-day with the same result.
“Then they wrote a protest and sent it to the proprietors, to which no reply was made. Now if you want to make a woman mad just pass her protest, or remonstrance, or what-not, by without deigning a reply! To say that the fair ‘beaders’ were angry don’t express the full meaning. Had the proprietors talked back at them all would have been forgiven. Give a woman an opportunity to use her tongue and much of her ire will vanish.”
“The thing became unbearable, so Monday morning there was a clatter of small feet around the foreman’s desk, and the music of feminine voices in earnest discussion. They gave the foreman to understand that the Declaration of Independence was not written in vain, and that the May Flower didn’t cross the stormy seas for nothing; and then to further emphasize their point they took off their aprons and threw them down in a pretty little pet, and pit-a-pat out of the factory went all the dainty feet. The foreman was aghast, and reported to his chiefs. Here was something unheard of – a strike among women!
“The matter was soon adjusted, but not until the strikers had repeatedly declared, with great vehemence, that they would never, never, never go back to work if they wa’nt paid what was coming to them, and all the hateful men in world couldn’t make them neither”
“The truth turned out to be Messrs. Drew, Selby & Company had never contemplated anything else than paying them for extra work done. They had been figuring on the new schedule all along, but had not yet succeeded in getting it ready. They had never thought of such a thing as not paying the girls for the extra work. The girls were made to understand this, and returned to work Thursday morning.”3
- Order of the Knights of Saint Crispin
- Knights of Labor
- There, now!: the young ladies of Drew & Selbys factory throw down their aprons and quit in a body. (1886, January 2). Portsmouth Times, p. 3.
