44 - UNLOCKED: Collar Laundry Union

We've unlocked our bonus episode on the Collar Laundry Union, in which we do a deep dive into the unionizing efforts of Troy, NY’s laundresses, and the role of Kate Mullany in leading the country’s first sustained women’s union. We detail the conditions of the laundries, the women’s first successes agitating for better pay and working conditions, their eventual dissolution, and the legacy they left for women workers. 

Kate Mullany in the National Women’s Hall of Fame: https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/kate-mullany/

The Times Union on Mullany’s induction into the Labor Hall of Fame: https://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-features/article/Troy-s-Kate-Mullany-Irish-immigrant-who-7468417.php

Historian Suzanne Spellen’s essays on Kate Mullany: https://www.brownstoner.com/history/walkabout-kate-mullany-a-troy-story-part-1/

Also cited: Women and the American Labor Movement by Philip S. Foner