Women in the Labor Movement reading list

Labor Day is the time to honor the contributions of women to the labor movement.

Through the years we have had the pleasure of honoring several leaders in the labor movement, in history and in the present. We pause this weekend to remember their dedication and determination toward creating a more just and equitable society.

We have gathered some of our favorite books by and about the contributions of these women and others. You can see some of the below. Be sure to also check out our “Women of the Labor Movement” list on the NWHA Bookshop.org page.

Lucy Parsons: An American Revolutionary
Carolyn Ashbaugh

Lucy Parsons’ life energy was directed toward freeing the working class from capitalism. She attributed the inferior position of women and minority racial groups in American society to class inequalities and argued, as Eugene Debs later did, that blacks were oppressed because they were poor, not because they were black. Lucy favored the availability of birth control information and contraceptive devices. She believed that under socialism women would have the right to divorce and remarry without economic, political and religious constraints; that women would have the right to limit the number of children they would have; and that women would have the right to prevent “legalized” rape in marriage.

Lucy Parsons was one of our 2017 Women’s History Honorees.

One Fair Wage: Ending Subminimum Pay in America
Saru Jayaraman

Before the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the country, more than six million people earned their living as tipped workers in the service industry. They served us in cafes and restaurants, they delivered food to our homes, they drove us wherever we wanted to go, and they worked in nail salons for as little as $2.13 an hour–the federal tipped minimum wage since 1991–leaving them with next to nothing to get by.

These workers, unsurprisingly, were among the most vulnerable workers during the pandemic. As businesses across the country closed down or drastically scaled back their services, hundreds of thousands lost their jobs. As in many other areas, the pandemic exposed the inadequacies of the nation’s social safety net and minimum-wage standards.

Saru Jayaraman was one of our 2018 Women’s History Honorees.

Labor leader, civil rights activist, outspoken feminist, African American clergywoman–Reverend Addie Wyatt stood at the confluence of many rivers of change in twentieth century America. The first female president of a local chapter of the United Packinghouse Workers of America, Wyatt worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt and appeared as one of Time magazine’s Women of the Year in 1975. Marcia Walker-McWilliams tells the incredible story of Addie Wyatt and her times. What began for Wyatt as a journey to overcome poverty became a lifetime commitment to social justice and the collective struggle against economic, racial, and gender inequalities.

Rev. Addie Wyatt was one of our 2017 Women’s History Honorees.

Women and the American Labor Movement
Philip S. Foner

This reprint of a groundbreaking history that traces American women’s struggle for freedom, equality and unity in the labor movement follows the triumphs and set backs of this fight from the early Colonial labor associations to the late twentieth century.

Women and the American Labor Movement gives voice to the women who had to battle on the shop floor and in the union movement for dignity and respect and who through courage and tenacity won significant victories in struggle for equal rights.

President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins Secretary of Labor in 1933 during the greatest economic crisis in American history–the Great Depression. Perkins prodded, pressured, and persuaded businessmen, labor leaders, and politicians to respond to the needs of the American people and end child labor, establish safer working conditions, fairer wages, reasonable working hours, unemployment insurance, and Social Security. Dedicated, disciplined, often controversial, Frances Perkins exerted a far-ranging influence on twentieth-century America. To accomplish things, she said, “You just can’t be afraid.”

Frances Perkins was one of our Women’s History Honorees in 1989, 1999, and 2000.

Elaine Black Yoneda: Jewish Immigration, Labor Activism, and Japanese American Exclusion and Incarceration
Rachel Schreiber

Elaine Black Yoneda is the first critical biography of this pioneering feminist and activist. Rachel Schreiber deftly traces Yoneda’s life as she became invested in radical politics and interracial and interethnic activism. In her work for the International Labor Defense of the Communist Party, Yoneda rose to the rank of vice president. After their incarceration, Elaine and Karl became active in the campaigns to designate Manzanar a federally recognized memorial site, for redress and reparations to Japanese Americans, and in opposition to nuclear weapons.

Sí, Ella Puede!: The Rhetorical Legacy of Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers
Stacey K. Sowards

Since the 1950s, Latina activist Dolores Huerta has been a fervent leader and organizer in the struggle for farmworkers’ rights within the Latina/o community. A cofounder of the United Farm Workers union in the 1960s alongside César Chávez, Huerta was a union vice president for nearly four decades before starting her own foundation in the early 2000s. She continues to act as a dynamic speaker, passionate lobbyist, and dedicated figure for social and political change. In this new study, Stacey K. Sowards closely examines Huerta’s rhetorical skills both in and out of the public eye and defines Huerta’s vital place within Chicana/o history.

Dolores Huerta was one of our Women’s History Honorees in 1984, 1992, and 2002.

Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond
Lilly Ledbetter and Lanier Scott Isom

Lilly Ledbetter always knew she was destined for something more than what she was born into: a house with no running water or electricity in the small town of Possum Trot, Alabama. In 1979, when Lilly applied for her dream job at the Goodyear tire factory, she got the job as one of the first women hired at the management level.

Nineteen years after her first day at Goodyear, Lilly received an anonymous note revealing that she was making thousands less per year than the men in her position. When she filed a sex-discrimination case against Goodyear, Lilly won–and then heartbreakingly lost on appeal. Over the next eight years, her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where she lost again. But Lilly continuted to fight, becoming the namesake of President Barack Obama’s first official piece of legislation.

Lilly Ledbetter was one of our 2017 Women’s History Honorees.

The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century
Grace Lee Boggs and Scott Kurashige

In this powerful, deeply humanistic book, Grace Lee Boggs, a legendary figure in the struggle for justice in America, shrewdly assesses the current crisis–political, economical, and environmental–and shows how to create the radical social change we need to confront new realities. A vibrant, inspirational force, Boggs has participated in all of the twentieth century’s major social movements–for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, and more. She draws from seven decades of activist experience, and a rigorous commitment to critical thinking, to redefine “revolution” for our times.

Working 9 to 5: A Women’s Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie
Ellen Cassedy

Ten office workers in Boston started out sitting in a circle and sharing the problems they encountered on the job. In a few short years, they had built a nationwide movement that united people of diverse races, classes, and ages.

They took on the corporate titans. They leafleted and filed lawsuits and started a woman-led union. They won millions of dollars in back pay and helped make sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination illegal.

The women office workers who rose up to win rights and respect on the job transformed workplaces throughout America. And along the way came Dolly Parton’s toe-tapping song and a hit movie inspired by their work.

The National Women’s History Alliance has a long history of recommending books related to the study of women’s history. We have also relied on the sales of these books for a portion of our funding. In the modern era, we understand that many of our followers prefer to buy their books from other online sources, and so we have an affiliate agreement with Amazon and Bookshop. When you click one of the links above and make a purchase, we will receive a small payment (at no extra cost to you).