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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Gradually I got introduced to the idea of trade unions. I became as enthusiastic as any of these other people. There was a Dr. Rachelle Yarros who was at Hull House. She was very keen about the trade union and the trade union movement. She was an Englishwoman, but had married a man named Yarros, whose national origin I don't know now. I think he was still alive and a rather distinguished scholarly type. Rachelle Yarros had grown up in England and was very familiar with the trade union movement, as it had been the basis of their life there.

Of course in England the trade union movement came ahead of political participation. One of the things that I think is very interesting is the contrast that in this country we had political participation; we had political liberty; we had political freedom; every many had a vote if he wanted to use it, long before there was a trade union. Whereas the English trade unions really won the vote for the working man by removing all the inhibitions against voting by law.

These people hadn't been organized. I remember that Dr. Yarros, Allan Burns, and young Graham Taylor helped in that. Allan Burns was a social worker around Chicago Commons. I knew them all, more or less. I became deeply convinced.





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