Kate Mullany

Kate Mullany
Born 1845
Died 1906
Known for Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame for organizing the 1st female union in the USA. Mullany, led a successful 6-day strike in 1864 to increase wages and improve working conditions for the Collar Laundry Union.

Kate Mullany (1845-1906) was an early female labor leader who started the all-women Collar Laundry Union in Troy, New York in February 1864. It was one of the first women's unions that lasted longer than the resolution of a specific issue.[1][2]

Biography

Kate Mullany was an Irish immigrant who, with her co-workers Esther Keegan and Sarah McQuillan, organized approximately 300 women into the first sustained female union in the country, the Collar Laundry Union, in 1864. Mullany went on to be its president and was elected second vice-president of the National Labor Union.

Only 23 years old at the time, Mullany led a successful 6-day strike in 1864 to increase wages and improve working conditions.[3][4]

In 1869 she married John Fogarty and her obituary was listed under her married name (as a respectable Irish Catholic woman would insist be proper).[5] She died in 1906 and was buried in the Fogarty family plot in St. Peter's Cemetery, Troy, New York.[6]

The Kate Mullany House, at 350 8th Street in Troy, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1998,[7] and became a National Historic Site in 2008.[1][3]

In 2000, Mullany was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.[2] She has been honored by the New York State Senate,[8] and her home is on the Women's Heritage Trail.[9]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Kate Mullany biography at the National Park Service government web site. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  2. 1 2 National Women's Hall of Fame official web site. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  3. 1 2 Wiawaka Women's Camp web site. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  4. ↑ Kate Mullany House organization official web site. Accessed February 4, 2008/
  5. ↑ http://www.nps.gov/nhl/designations/samples/ny/KateMullany.pdf
  6. ↑ Kate Mullany House organization official web site Grave web page. Accessed February 4, 2008/
  7. ↑ Page Putnam Miller; Jill S. Mesirow; Andrew Laas; John W. Bond; Rachel Bliven (September 4, 1997), National Historic Landmark Nomination—Kate Mullany House (pdf), National Park Service and Accompanying 2 photos, from 1994. (493 KB)
  8. ↑ NY Senate Women's Heritage Month web site. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  9. ↑ Women's Heritage Trail official web site. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  • The Kate Mullany story at the Public Employees Federation web site
  • Connect Kids to Troy History
  • America's Working Women: A Documentary History, 1600 to the Present By Rosalyn Baxandall, Linda Gordon, Susan Reverby Published 1995 W. W. Norton & Company 356 pages ISBN 0-393-31262-3 found at

Further reading

  • Turbin, Carole (1994). Working Women of Collar City: Gender, Class, and Community in Troy, 1864-86. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252018362.
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