f training, their lower wages and their
unconsciousness of the benefits of organization; also owing to the
fact that such a large number of women are engaged in the unskilled
trades that are hardest to organize. On the other hand, neither the
national unions, the state and central bodies, nor the local unions
have ever realized the value of the women membership they actually
have, nor the urgent necessity that exists for organizing all
working-women. To their own trade gatherings even, they have rarely
admitted women delegates in proportion to the number of women workers.
Only now and then, even today, do we find a woman upon the executive
board of a national trade union, and when it comes to electing
delegates to labor's yearly national gathering, it is men who are
chosen, even in a trade like the garment-workers, in which there is a
great preponderance of women.

Of the important international unions with women members there are but
two which have a continuous, unbroken history of over fifty years.
These are the Typographical Union, dating back to 1850, and the Cigar
Makers' International Union, which was founded in 1864.

Other international bodies, founded since, are:

Boot and Shoe Workers' Union. 1889
Hotel and Restaurant Employes Union. 1890
Retail Clerks' International Protective Association. 1890
United Garment Workers of America. 1891
International Brotherhood of Bookbinders. 1892
Tobacco Workers' International Union. 1895
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. 1900
Shirt, Waist and Laundry Workers International U'n. 1900
United Textile Workers' Union. 1901
International Glove Workers' Union of N. America. 1902

One group of unions, older than any of these, dating back to 1885, are
the locals of the hat trimmers. These workers belong to no national
organization, and it is only recently that they have been affiliated
with the American Federation of Labor. They are not, as might be
judged from the title, milliners; they trim and bind men's hats. They
cooeperate with the Panama and Straw Hat Trimmers and Operators. In New
York the hat trimmers and the workers in straw are combined into one
organization, under the name of the United Felt, Panama and Straw Hat
Trimmers' and Operators' Union of Greater New York. The Hat Trimmers
are almost wholly a women's organization,