nd a single-minded
devotion which admitted of attention to no rival cause. Being a woman
of independent means, she was able to give her time entirely to the
work of the League. She would be on the road for weeks at a time,
speaking, interviewing working-women, manufacturers or legislators,
all the while holding the threads, organization here, legislation
there.

But the first opportunity for the Women's Trade Union League to do
work on a large scale, work truly national in its results, came
with the huge strikes in the sewing trades of 1909-1911. To these a
separate chapter is devoted. It is sufficient here to say that the
backing given by the National League and its branches in New York, in
Philadelphia and in Chicago was in great part responsible for the very
considerable measure of success which has been the outcome of these
fierce industrial struggles. On the whole, the strikers gained much
better terms than they could possibly have done unassisted. Almost
entirely foreigners, they had no adequate means of reaching with their
story the English-speaking and reading public of their city. The
Leagues made it their particular business to see that the strikers'
side of the dispute was brought out in the press and in meetings and
gatherings of different groups. It is related of one manufacturer,
whose house was strike-bound, that he was heard one day expressing
to a friend in their club his bewilderment over the never-ending
publicity given to this strike in the daily newspapers, adding that it
was a pity; these affairs were always better settled quietly.

To win even from failure success, to win for success permanence, was
the next aim of the League, and nowhere has this constructive policy
of theirs brought about more significant results than in the aid which
they were able to give to the workers in the sewing trades. In New
York it was the League which made possible the large organizations
which exist today among the cloak-makers, the waist-makers and other
white-goods-workers. The League support during the great strikes, and
its continued quiet work after the strikes were over, first showed the
public that there was power and meaning in this new development, this
new spirit among the most oppressed women workers. The attitude of the
League also convinced labor men that this was no dilettante welfare
society, but absolutely fair and square with the labor movement. The
Chicago League, after helping in the same way in