![]() In a brave demonstration of solidarity, 200 female factory workers walked off the job and called a strike. The fact that these two women had climbed the ranks into skilled positions, one as a sorter and the other as a marker, mattered little to the laundry owners who were eager to tamp down union organizing. To add insult to injury, the owners also fired two of the leading union organizers. A majority of Acme’s female workforce joined the union, but the company refused to recognize it. “The American used just half as much material as the Mexican,” he explained to the El Paso Herald, continuing that “the work was cleaner and whiter and better in every way…”“American Help is Better” El Paso Herald, October 31, 1919.Working Women’s Solidarity: The Start of the 1919 Laundry StrikeIn October of 1919, frustrated by this unequal treatment, women workers from the Acme Laundry Company came together with representatives from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) to organize a local Laundry Workers Union. Ravel, the owner of Excelsior Laundry, who claimed that there is a “difference in work,” between ‘American’ and ‘Mexican’ laborers. Take, for example, the comments made by a Mr. White women in those cities earned $14 or more on average in laundry work, according to scholar Mario Garcia.To justify unequal pay, factory owners wielded racist notions of Mexican laborers as unskilled, lazy, and more adept than white workers at surviving with lower wages. These wages were considerably lower than those of their Euro-American counterparts in non-border cities such as Galveston, Dallas, and Houston. Photo credit: Photo credit: yet, while they represented the majority of the laundry labor force, Mexican-American women earned between $4 and $6 a week. At the time of the Laundry strike, nearly half of the working female population in El Paso was of Mexican origin, and these women comprised between 60-80% of the workers in the region’s industrial laundries.Female cigar packers of Mexican descent at Kohlberg Factory, El Paso. The history of the 1919 Laundry Strike showcases the ways in which contemporary notions of race and gender shaped the complex history of American women’s labor.“A Statement to the Public” El Paso Herald, October 31, 1919.Unequal Pay in an Industrial Border CityAs a budding industrial city on the Texas–Mexico border, El Paso in 1919 was home to a growing population of workers of Mexican origin, including naturalized immigrants, native-born Americans of Mexican heritage, and laborers who crossed the border daily from Ciudad Juarez. Life stories included in the curriculum include the stories of Emma Goldman and Clara Lemlich. Spearheaded by Mexican-American women workers, the 1919 Laundry Strike in El Paso highlighted the ways in which ethnic, racial, and class identities shaped the struggle for women’s rights beyond suffrage in the United States after World War I.Just in time for Labor Day, this Fall’s launch of the Modernizing America: 1889-1920, the Progressive Era unit of Women and the American Story, will bring the diverse stories of women laborers and activists directly into the classroom. These women, as documented by scholar Irene Ledesma, marched on picket lines to protest unfair wages and their employers’ refusal to recognize their newly-formed union. VisitExhibitionsProgramsLibraryEducationExploreShop Join & Give New Wing Host an Event Dine Admission Tickets Jin Women at the CenterTeaching Women’s History: The El Paso Laundry Strike of 1919“What chance has a girl or woman to live a decent respectable life at the wages of this kind?”- El Paso City and County Labor Advocate, October 31, 1919In October of 1919, as women across the United States eagerly anticipated the ratification of the 19th Amendment, a group of young women laborers in El Paso, Texas, took their own stand for equality. ![]() ![]() CensusMembershipFAQsJoin & GiveNew WingHost an EventDineAdmission TicketsAdmission TicketsSuggested TermsVirtual ExhibitionsThe Civil WarU.S. Teaching Women’s History: The El Paso Laundry Strike of 1919 | New-York Historical Society Skip to contentVisitExhibitionsProgramsLibraryEducationExploreShopSuggested TermsVirtual ExhibitionsThe Civil WarU.S.
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