) was found to be flagrantly
violated, the girls continually working till midnight, and sometimes
till two in the morning.

The first measure of improvement was the passing of a new ordinance,
forbidding work after seven in the evening. The workers, however,
promptly realized that the more humane regulation was likely to be as
ill enforced as the former one had been unless there was a union to
see that it was carried out.

About three hundred of the men organized, and applied to the Laundry
Workers' International Union for a charter. The men did not wish
to take the women in, but the executive board of the national
organization, to their everlasting credit, refused the charter unless
the women were taken in as well. Even so, a great many of the women
were too frightened to take any steps themselves, as the employers
were already threatening with dismissal any who dared to join a union,
but the most courageous of the girls, with the help of some of the
best of the men resolved to go on. Hannah Mahony, now Mrs. Hannah
Nolan, Labor Inspector, took up the difficult task of organizing. So
energetic and successful was she, that in sixteen weeks the majority
of the girls, as well as the men, had joined the new union. It was all
carried out secretly, and only when they felt themselves strong enough
did they come out into the open with a demand for a higher wage-scale
and shorter hours.

By April 1, 1901, the conditions in the laundry industry were
effectually revolutionized. The boarding system was abolished, wages
were substantially increased and the working day was shortened; girls
who had been receiving $8 and $10 a month were now paid $6 and $10 a
week; ten hours was declared to constitute the working day and nine
holidays a year were allowed. For overtime the employes were to be
paid at the rate of time and a half. An hour was to be taken at noon,
and any employe violating this rule was to be fined. The fine was
devised as an educative reminder of the new obligation the laborers
were under to protect one another, and to raise the standard of the
industry upon which they must depend for a living, so fearful was the
union that old conditions might creep insidiously back upon workers
unaccustomed to independence.

The next step was the nine-hour day, and this in good time was
obtained too, but only as the result of the power of the strong,
well-managed union.

The union was just five years old, when unheard-of disaster