People

Frances Perkins was appointed Secretary of the Department of Labor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She became the first woman to hold a cabinet position.

A labor organizer and advocate for women’s suffrage, Margaret Hinchey rose to national prominence in the early decades of the 20th century. Her passionate speeches advocated for both economic justice and political equality for women She spoke especially of the need for poor and working-class women to gain access to the electoral system.

A prominent advocate for labor and civil rights, Rosina Corrothers Tucker played an integral role in the creation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and its International Ladies Auxiliary. She served as a leader in the Auxiliary for several decades and played a role in planning the March on Washington movement in the 1940s.

Larry Itliong was a Filipino American labor organizer and civil rights activist. He played a central role in the founding of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union. Itliong is best known for his role in the 1965-1966 strike and boycott against California grape growers and the subsequent founding of the UFW. His activism was a lifelong endeavor. For more than four decades, he organized and advocated on behalf of farm and cannery workers, immigrants, and Asian Americans.

A. Philip Randolph was a labor organizer and one of the most influential political strategists of the twentieth century. His belief in organized labor’s ability to counter workforce discrimination and his skill in planning non-violent protests helped gain employment advancements for African Americans.

George Mortimer Pullman was an American engineer and industrialist. He designed and manufactured the Pullman sleeping car and founded a company town, Pullman, for the workers who manufactured it. His Pullman Company also hired African-American men to staff the Pullman cars, who became known and widely respected as Pullman porters, providing elite service.

Clara Lemlich Shavelson was a union organizer, suffrage activist, and Communist Party organizer.

Emma Tenayuca was a Mexican American labor organizer and civil rights activist. She led a wave of strikes by women workers in Texas in the 1930s. Her actions empowered her community and inspired workers across the country.

The “mink brigade” was a group of wealthy women who supported the labor movement in the early 1900s. Society women like Alva Belmont and Anne Morgan—who could afford to wear mink—walked picket lines alongside striking workers. Their social status helped protect the strikers from police abuse and attracted sympathy to their cause.

Eva McDonald Valesh was an investigative journalist and labor activist. She exposed unsafe conditions for women workers in the Twin Cities during the late nineteenth century and became a prominent labor writer and speaker.