Necessity of Organization

<p><em>The Necessity of Organization</em> describes Mary Kenney O'Sullivan's struggle to improve labor conditions through trade unionism. Appointed the first woman organizer for the American Federation of Labor in 1892 she went on to be a co-founder of the Women's Trade Union League formed in 1903 as a cross-class alliance of women workers and their middle- and upper-class allies. The possibilities and limits of trade unionism for women given the class and gender constraints of the period are the focus of this book.</p>