Agnes Nestor (24 June 1880 – 28 December 1948) was an American labor leader, politician, and social reformer. She is best remembered for her membership and leadership roles in the

International Glove Workers Union The International Glove Workers' Union of America (IGWUA) was a labor union representing workers involved in making gloves in the United States and Canada. The union was founded in Washington, D.C. on 17 December 1902, to represent leather and kid ...

(IGWU) and the

Women's Trade Union League The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) (1903–1950) was a U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions. The WTUL played an important ...

(WTUL), where she organized for

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

and workers' rights . Nestor's prominent activities included organizing women workers in Chicago in the early 1900s, running for public office, serving on national commissions to promote education, and securing work-hour limitations for women.

Early life

Agnes Nestor was born on June 24, 1880, in

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the List of municipalities in Mi ...

to Thomas and Anna (McEwen) Nestor. Her father owned a grocery store there, but due to the depression of the 1890s he returned to his old trade as a

machinist A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional who not only operates machine tools, but also has the knowledge of tooling and materials required to create set ups on machine tools such as milling machines, grinders, lathes, and drilling ...

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. In spring of 1897, Nestor and the rest of her family followed after their father and headed to Chicago.

Career

Nestor, still in her teens, found work in Chicago's Eisendrath Glove Company (a non-union shop). In her autobiography ''Woman's Labor Leader'', Nestor discusses the company's unjust practices such as: the company charged workers fifty cents a week for machine rental, workers had to provide their own needles (and if somebody was to break a needle they were charged for a new one to replace it), and also workers had to purchase their own machine oil, however, these unjust practices would not go unchallenged. In 1902 Nestor stepped forward as leader in a strike of women workers at the Eisendrath Glove Company (encouraged and supported by the unionised men), which lasted ten days. The strike was successful, all the women's demands were met; workers received a raise in pay, no longer had to pay rent for their machines, and the Eisendrath company took greater responsibility for their machinery, its greatest outcome being the implementation of a union shop.

International Glove Workers Union and the Women's Trade Union League

Following the success of the strike, Nestor took on more leadership roles. In 1902, the same small organization of women who took part in the Eisendrath Glove Company strike formed Glove Makers Local 2, with Nestor as a founder and leader. Nestor was the national vice president of the International Glove Workers Union from 1903 to 1906, secretary-treasurer from 1906 to 1913, general president from 1913 to 1915, vice-president, again, from 1915 to 1938, and director of research and education from 1938 until her death in 1948. As a leader in the International Glove Workers Union, Nestor gained prominence among labor leaders and earned access to network with notable women in Chicago society, many of whom she met through her involvement with

women's clubs The woman's club movement was a social movement that took place throughout the United States that established the idea that women had a moral duty and responsibility to transform public policy. While women's organizations had always been a par ...

. Though there were differences between "club women" and "working women," particularly in terms of class, domestic roles, and educational attainment, the relationship and outreach efforts Nestor built with club women were to further the agenda of the International Glove Workers Union. Nestor was also an active member of the Women's Trading Center (WTUL) of Chicago beginning in 1904, and served as its president from 1913 to 1948. Unlike other women's clubs, the Women's Trade Union League admitted women regardless of class, the club's aim was to secure the organization of all women workers of the U.S. into

trade unions A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and Employee ben ...

in the hopes of gaining better working conditions, a reduced work day, a living wage, and full citizenship of women. At the Women's Trade Union League, Nestor worked alongside prominent women labor leaders

Mary Kenney O'Sullivan Mary Kenney O'Sullivan (January 8, 1864 – January 18, 1943), was an organizer in the early U.S. labor movement. She learned early the importance of Trade union, unions from poor treatment received at her first job in dressmaking. Making a career ...

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Margaret Haley Margaret A. Haley (November 15, 1861 – January 5, 1939) was a teacher, unionist, and Georgist land value tax activist,Arnesen, Eric. Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-class History. New York: Routledge, 2007. who was dubbed the "lady ...

Helen Marot Helen Marot (June 9, 1865 – June 3, 1940) was an American writer, librarian, and labor organizer. She is best remembered for her efforts to address child labor and improve the working conditions of women. She was from Philadelphia and became act ...

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, Elizabeth Maloney, Mary Anderson,

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, and

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, together they were able to lobby, organize, fundraise, and create the WTUL into an influential and transformative organization. The Women's Trade Union League seal exhibits the phrases "The Eight Hour Day," "A Living Wage," and "To Guard the Home," thereby conveying the message that the WTUL believed that in advocating for reduced work hours, and raising wages, women workers would be able to better attend domestic responsibilities at home. They would come to work diligently to achieve the status they longed for displayed on their seal. For many years attempts were made by various labor groups to enact legislation to protect women workers from overlong working hours, from the dangers of unprotected machinery, and sweatshop conditions. The WTUL took action in composing a bill that would make the previous goals attainable, the bill called for an

eight-hour day The eight-hour day movement (also known as the 40-hour week movement or the short-time movement) was a social movement to regulate the length of a working day, preventing excesses and abuses. An eight-hour work day has its origins in the 16 ...

. They worked for three years gathering reports on conditions under which women were working, including unorganized women who did factory work in their own homes (these women had no standard wages, and payments ranged, the poorer the woman the worse the tragedies). The reports were presented in the Women's Trade Union League's first exhibit, which was called "Exhibit of Dyanamic Sweatshops," they presented the eight-hour day bill as a health measure, because it was on those grounds that the Oregon ten-hour day was passed. The bill did not pass, Senator Jones suggested they exclude hotel and restaurant workers from the protection of the proposed law, and accept a ten-hour day, the WTUL refused to exclude any working women but did accept the ten-hour day, thus, in 1909 passed the Illinois ten-hour day (their proposed eight-hour day would be reached in 1937). In 1913, as president of WTUL, Nestor rode the "Suffrage Train" from Chicago to Springfield to speak and lobby on behalf of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Act and wrote "The Working Girl's Need for Suffrage" about how union women can improve work conditions by influencing legislation. The IESA passed giving Illinois women limited suffrage, but the ability to vote for President and local offices. The topic of education for working women was just as crucial to the WTUL, they created an education program for working girls, in hopes of providing them with opportunities to explore cultural avenues which they had been denied from. In 1917, they worked out a plan with the

Chicago Board of Education The Chicago Board of Education serves as the board of education (school board) for the Chicago Public Schools. The board traces its origins to the Board of School Inspectors, created in 1837. The board is currently appointed solely by the mayor ...

for the use of the classrooms of public schools (when they were not in use) to hold classes for the working women, Nestor particularly helped work out a course in the history of the trade-union movement. In 1918, Nestor joined a group organized by

Samuel Gompers Samuel Gompers (; January 27, 1850December 13, 1924) was a British-born American cigar maker, labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and served as the organization's ...

to travel on a Labor mission to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, the purpose of the mission was to cultivate international relationships between labor groups in the United States and in Europe and to demonstrate the readiness to help war-stricken Europe and cooperate once

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

ended. When Nestor returned to Chicago, she formed the Cooperative Glove Association of Chicago in 1921 to compete against non-union shops, but it failed in 1925 because it could not compete effectively. She became involved in politics, running unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for state legislature in 1928, serving on the Chicago Recreation Commission (1934), the Board of Trustees of Chicago's

Century of Progress A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from 1933 to 1934. The fair, registered under the Bureau International des Expositi ...

Exposition (1933-1934), and the Advisory Committee of the Chicago Planning Commission (1939). She opposed the

National Woman's Party The National Woman's Party (NWP) was an American women's political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women's suffrage. After achieving this goal with the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the NW ...

and the

Equal Rights Amendment The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. Proponents assert it would end legal distinctions between men and ...

, arguing that the constitutional amendment would remove protections working women. By the 1930s, the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

would have effected both the WTUL and the IGWU financially, the latter suffered greater than the former. Even with such setback, Nestor continued her work as a labor leader and spent a lot of time fundraising for the unions. At one point, she served as the Director of Research and education for the IGWU-AFL. Nestor served on the

National Recovery Administration The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a prime agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1933. The goal of the administration was to eliminate "cut throat competition" by bringing industry, labor, and governmen ...

in its work to regulate worker safety. In the last decade of her life, Nestor never retired, rather she spent her remaining years recruiting unorganized glove workers, and preventing the relaxation of labor laws during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Death

Nestor died on December 28, 1948 (aged 68) in Chicago after years of suffering from infections and respiratory illnesses. She is buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery.

Selected works

* (1910), ''The working girl's need of suffrage'' * (1917), ''The trend of legislation affecting women's hours of labor'' * (1921), ''Women workers marching on'' * (1942), ''Brief history of the International Glove Workers Union of America, organized at Washington, D.C., December 17–20, 1902, charter granted December 23, 1902, by the American Federation of Labor'' * (1954), ''Woman's labor leader. An autobiography''

References