MIN MATHESON
The following information is credited to the Pennsylvania Historical markers.
In the 1920s and 1930s, as the bottom was falling out of the anthracite industry, apparel manufacturers moved from New York City to northeastern Pennsylvania. Owners of garment factories looked to employ, cheaply, the women and girls of the Wyoming Valley. Min Matheson and the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) called the operations "runaways," that tried "to get away from the New York [union] agreement" and the higher wages afforded workers by collective bargaining. Min and her husband Bill moved to Kingston, Luzerne County in 1944, she as the ILGWU's General Manager of the Wyoming Valley District and he as Director of Education for eastern Pennsylvania.
Conditions were horrible for the wives and daughters of many unemployed mine workers. Employers ignored labor laws on the books and pressured the women to work two, even three shifts. Min recalled in an interview how operators exploited the workers from the start: "They told the women, '...We'll teach you how to sew.' They worked for weeks for nothing. And the hours!"
Min arrived to find six organized shops with 650 union members. When she left, there were 168 organized factories and 11,000 ILGWU members. Success came quickly in Wilkes-Barre, Kingston and Nanticoke, but at Pittston, Min faced difficulty and threats from organized crime. Crime bosses used garment factories as fronts for other, illegal activities, and used local police forces to keep out the union. Min and union workers faced harassment and intimidation from both.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Students will learn the positive power that one person has to change a negative situation.
HISTORICAL ERA
1950’s and 1960’s
VOCABULARY
Collective bargaining
Exploited
Intimidation
Apparel
Garment
RELATED THEMES
Business
SOURCES
Beyond the Marker
Robert P Wolensky, Kenneth C. Wolensky, Nicole H. Wolensky, Fighting for the Union
Label: The Women's Garment Industry and the ILGWU in Pennsylvania (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2002).
Kenneth C. Wolensky and Robert P. Wolensky, Born to Organize Pennsylvania Heritage
(Summer, 1999): 32-39.
Kenneth C. Wolensky and Robert P. Wolensky, Min Matheson and the ILGWU in the Northern
Anthracite Region Pennsylvania History (October, 1993): 455-474.