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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Robert Hunter, who's now the head of the Charity Society of the City of Chicago - like the New York Charity Organization Society - was working in connection with it. He and one or two other people took me to some trade union meetings where we were permitted to go as observers. We sat in the back of the hall and listened to the talk. We saw the difference in their attitude. These were Irish and Germans principally and all men.

Someone, maybe Miss Barnum, took me to the bookbinder's meeting. The bookbinders had always, from the very beginning of their organization, had women in it. Most of the other old time organizations were strictly craft unions on the English pattern - men of one trade grouped together who really protected their trade. They met in back rooms and had a rough time getting started. They had a skill so precious that if they stuck together, they couldn't be denied because the employer had to have carpenters; he had to have men who knew how to do this kind of work. Their skill, if they stuck together, could be sold at a reasonable price, whereas these other people were replaceable because they didn't have skilled trades - the garment workers and the unorganized.

Somebody, as I say, took me to the bookbinder's meeting. I remember being deeply impressed by that. There were women in it. There's an old clause in the bookbinder's union that





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