Daughters of St. Crispin facts for kids

The Daughters of St. Crispin was a special group for women who made shoes. It was like a club or union for workers. It started in Lynn, Massachusetts on July 28, 1869. This group was important because it was the first national union for women workers in the United States.

The idea for the union began with a big strike in 1860 in Massachusetts. Over a thousand women workers stopped working to ask for better conditions. By the end of 1869, the Daughters of St. Crispin had 24 local groups, called "lodges," all over the United States. The biggest group had more than 400 members! There were lodges in many states, including Massachusetts, California, Illinois, and New York. The different groups met together every year in Massachusetts until 1872. Carrie Wilson was the president of the union, and Abbie Jacques was the secretary.

The name "Daughters of St. Crispin" came from a men's shoemaker union called the Order of the Knights of St. Crispin. Both groups were named after Saint Crispin, who is known as the special saint for people who make shoes or work with leather.

In 1870, all the Daughters of St. Crispin groups agreed on a very important rule: they demanded that women should get the same pay as men for doing the same job. In 1872, about 300 members of the union went on strike at three factories in Stoneham, Massachusetts. This strike didn't get them what they wanted. But another strike that same year in Lynn, Massachusetts, was successful! The workers there won higher wages.

The Daughters of St. Crispin were very determined. One time, the men's union, the Knights of St. Crispin, ended their strike. But the Daughters of St. Crispin kept striking! They didn't like a rule that made them pay $5 to get a job. They would lose this money if they didn't stay for a full three months. The factory owners changed the rule because of the women's strike. A year later, the owners tried the rule again. Nearly 900 women went on strike again, and they won a second time!

The union helped different kinds of shoemakers. Some members lived in towns near the factories. Others, called 'floating' stitchers, traveled from factory to factory. They moved to find work when jobs changed with the seasons. Members of the union also talked about important issues of the time. They discussed how getting the right to vote (called suffrage) would affect working women. These talks about voting rights were still happening when the union ended.

In 1874, members of the Daughters of St. Crispin spoke to the government (Congress). They asked for new laws to limit how long women and children could work in factories. They wanted a maximum of a 10-hour workday.

The national Daughters of St. Crispin union started to become less active around 1873. This was partly because of a tough economic time called the Long Depression. However, local groups in Massachusetts stayed strong. Many individual members later joined another big workers' group called the Knights of Labor, which started in 1869.