The strike of the shirtwaist girls.

• Author: Dutcher, Elizabeth
• Position: 1910 - Brief article

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April 23, 1910

The masters tried intimidation. Police protection was summoned, reinforced by well-paid private detectives, and strong-arm men with criminal records and plenty of business sense. The girls were cursed, battered, pummeled, dragged off to police stations, and there brought before magistrates who openly stated that they were on the side of the manufacturers.

Fines were accordingly imposed, of from one to ten dollars, and several gifts sent to the workhouse, there to be shut in with the most degraded of their sex.

Just here, however, was where that new and as yet unexplained phenomenon--the twentieth century spirit of solidarity, among women--made itself felt. It was a real victory. Three hundred and fifty-two shops settled with...