We are indebted to a number of people and institutions in the preparation of this book. We appreciate the resources, support and cooperation of the Labor Studies Center of the University of Michigan’s Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, the Department of History of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, and the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women. We especially want to thank Hy Kornbluh, Tennant McWilliams, Laura Lein, and Margaret McIntosh for their support and cooperation.
We are deeply grateful to the many archivists and librarians who helped make the time we spent in their libraries productive and pleasant: Debra Bernhardt and Jon Bloom of the Robert Wagner Archives and the Tamiment Library at New York University; William Emerson of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library; Kenneth Fones-Wolf and Frederic Miller of the Urban Archives, Temple University; Patricia King of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College; Eleanor Lewis of the Sophia Smith Collections, Smith College; Dione Miles and Marjorie Long of the Archives of Urban and Labor Affairs, Wayne State University; Elizabeth Norris of the National Board, YWCA; Richard Strassberg of the Archives of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University; Robert Spink of the New York City Public Library; Robert Warner of the National Archives and Records Service; Edward Webber of the Labadie Collection, University of Michigan; Gloria Weinrich of the New York State Department of Labor Archives, and Lucy West of the Archives, Bryn Mawr College.
We appreciate the permissions from the following archives to use the graphics illustrating chapter title pages: the Library of Congress for the National Women’s Trade Union League graphics used in Chapters 1 and 5; the Urban Archives at Temple University for the illustrations from the archives of the Kensington (Philadelphia) YWCA used in Chapters 2 and 8; the Schlesinger Library for the illustration used in Chapter 3; the Bryn Mawr College Archives for the drawing used for Chapter 4; the U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau for the illustrations used in Chapters 6 and 7; Helen Elkiss, faciliator of the 1983 UCLEA Midwest School for Women Workers, for the drawing used in Chapter 9; and Lyn Goldfarb, Anatoli Ilyashov, and Charles Harrington for the photographs used in Chapter 10.
The lines by Hilda W. Smith on page v, are from her poem “Song for the Hudson Shore School for Women Workers” in the Collected Poems of Hilda Worthington Smith, Bryn Mawr College Archives. The stanza “I should like to write a poem” on page i was originally published in Concerning Workers’ Education Vol. 1, No. 3 (Washington, D.C.: Federal Emergency Relief Administration, March 1934). We appreciate Edith Berkowitz Parker’s permission to use her song “We Are Free” on page 62.
In editing this collection of original essays and documentary materials, we had the cooperation and enthusiasm of the chapters’ authors. We are especially appreciative of the help given by Lyn Goldfarb in the initial planning of the volume.
A number of other colleagues and friends have been especially helpful at different stages of this book: Brigid O’Farrell of the Harvard University Trade Union Program; Judi Catlett of the Center for Labor Education and Research, University of Alabama at Birmingham; Patricia Cahill of Wellesley College are colleagues who responded to different sections of the manuscript. Betty Eisler, Gay Gullickson, and Jane Sherwin provided hospitality during our visits to archives in their communities. Jeanne Holloway and Andree Naylor expertly typed many of the sections of the book.
Our families—Clint and Megan Joiner; Hy, Peter, Eliana, Jane, and Kathe Kornbluh—have helped us in so many ways for which we are always grateful.
Michael Ames and Zachary Simpson, at the Temple University Press, facilitated the production of this book with imagination and professional expertise. We are grateful also to Joan Vandergrift and Lisa Waciega for their editorial assistance, and to Susan Holbert for her careful preparation of the index.
Our two dear friends and colleagues, Barbara Mayer Wertheimer and Hilda Worthington Smith, died before this book was published. We dedicate Sisterhood and Solidarity to them both for their vision, inspiration, and lifelong commitment to developing workers’ education programs for women, and for the vital roles they played in our lives.