Shirtwaist Strikes In The Early 1900's

Going back into ancient times, a woman’s role in society was always centered in the household. Tending to the children, keeping the house clean, making dinner for her husband and children, etc. were typical roles. It was not until the passing of the 19th Amendment that women were given their rights and their voice was heard. Women should not have been abused and tortured in the early 1900’s but they were. During the Shirtwaist Strike of 1909 women were beaten and ridiculed for wanting change; but it was because of their fight, that the women of today have the many benefits that have. From the late 1800’s into the early 1900’s, women had always been “portrayed as delicate, demure, and silent, confined to a domestic world that cocooned …show more content…
It “changed the perception of women’s abilities following World War I” . In late September of 1909, the workers at the shirtwaist factories decided to go out on strike for shorter hours and better wages. While striking, the women were met with many obstacles. When management found out about the women’s strike they responded by sending thugs and prostitutes out to attack the strikers, and were assisted by the police in arresting the strikers on the slightest of pretexts or none at all . The girls were beaten and raped by the thugs, thrown into jail, and were tried for crimes they did not commit. These women should not have been treated this way for peaceful striking. As the strike went on, a meeting was called at Cooper Union, Local 25. There, a unanimous vote was cast for a “general strike against all of the shirtwaist factories in the city” . With only a day passing after the vote, twenty to thirty thousand, out of the thirty-two thousand that worked in the shirtwaist factory, showed up to support the strike. Following the general strike of the shirtwaist girls, they encountered powerful manufacturers’ association, such as Great Universal Stores and Burton. They also faced a corrupt government, and a hostile police and court system, which included bribery and secrecy. However, these trials and tribulations that the strikers faced got the attention and unexpected support of women of the upper-class New York society. Anne Tracy Morgan was an avid supporter for women’s rights. She organized for the women to have their meetings, her being included in the strike got the attention of reporters, which caused an abundance of newspapers to be published about the strike, and she even joined the women on the picket line. More and more high-society women joined the fight for women’s right. They organized teas where information about the strike was being discussed and they even