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Notable New     Yorkers
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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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there must be one vice president of the union who is a woman - that was from the very beginning. So there was a woman vice president. She was a very up and coming person of about forty-five or fifty - a little rough perhaps, but very much a personage. She was not a low life person at all.

The bookbinders were on the whole a very intelligent group. They were mixed. There were more purely American names among them - American, English, Scotch. They were quite skilled and the women were almost as skilled as the men, they didn't have all the skills; but it was a highly skilled trade.

Miss Barnum pointed out to me how well women did in a trade union. When they belonged as equal members, they got on all right. The printers, also, had a union. Somebody took me to that. The women were not allowed to belong to the printer's union, although they worked in printing shops.

All this gave me an idea of trade unions and their great advantage to working people and the idea that the greater the organization of the trade unions, the more likely that these horrors of exploitation, no pay and the really criminal refusal to pay when the money has been earned, as well as the terrible physical conditions of the work places, might perhaps be overcome. Such things as holidays were not known. If the boss said you worked on Sunday, you worked





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