Dora Lee Jones was a
domestic worker
A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service ...
in early 20th-century
New York City. She helped to found a
Domestic Workers' Union in
Harlem in 1934.
["The Domestic Workers Union"]
National Women's History Museum.Teresa L. Amott, Julie A. Matthaei, ''Race, Gender, and Work: A Multi-cultural Economic History of Women in the United States''
South End Press, 1996, p. 171. The Domestic Workers' Union was started by a group of Finns and a few African Americans in California, who saw the necessity for a fight against the exploitation of Negro domestics.
Purpose of a union in the early 1900s
Creating the Domestic Workers' Union was a step towards trying to erase domestic slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
. The Union members helped send out letters to the ministers
Minister may refer to:
* Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric
** Minister (Catholic Church)
* Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department)
** Minister without portfolio, a member of government w ...
of the African-American churches where these