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 Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

and became active in investigating working conditions among children and women. As a librarian, she worked at several important institutions and helped organize the Free Library of Economics and Political Science in 1897. Marot was a member of 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 ...

. She later organized the Bookkeepers, Stenographers and Accountants Union in New York. In 1912, she was part of a commission that investigated the

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The ...

. She was an active writer and her articles about the labor movement appeared in many periodicals of the day.

Early life

Marot was born on June 9, 1865 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She grew up in an affluent family and received a Quaker education. From 1895 to 1896, Marot was the literary editor of '' Ladies' Home Journal'' where she was responsible for answering literary queries to the magazine. During this time, she compiled a 288-page reader's guide containing over 5,000 books. Included were some 170 author summaries.

Early library work

Marot left ''Ladies' Home Journal'' in April 1896 to organize the King Library of the Church of the Redeemer in

Andalusia, Pennsylvania Andalusia is a historic neighborhood and unincorporated community in Bensalem Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It borders Philadelphia along the Poquessing Creek. The ZIP Code is 19020. The area is the southernmost part of the township and ...

. In September 1896 she worked as a librarian in

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington (Lenape: ''Paxahakink /'' ''Pakehakink)'' is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina ...

as a cataloger. She stayed at the library for three years. The head librarian at the time, Enos L. Doan, remarked on her work: "She brought to it taste and literary discrimination of a high order—qualities which, in addition to her thorough technical training, gave her unusual efficiency in the performance of her duties."

The Free Library of Economics and Political Science

In 1897 Marot, along with Dr. George M. Gould and Innes Forbes, opened a private library specializing in works on social and economic topics. The Free Library of Economics and Political Science concentrated on issues relating to social and economic reform and was greatly influenced by The Fabian Society, a

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

organization. It was located on the second floor of a department store on Filbert Street in Philadelphia. The '' Philadelphia Record'' described the library in its pages on June 15, 1897:

Philadelphia has been enriched with a library distinctively modern and progressive in spirit... The new library forms an important supplement to the municipal system, since the topics of the day and the problems of the industrial and sociological world cannot be thoroughly followed by an institution for the general circulation of books. With its proposed technical classification of magazine literature and an accessible collection of pamphlets and volumes, the Library of Economics should become a powerful factor for civic and social education in the community and Commonwealth.Gaudioso, M. (1992). Helen Marot: Librarian, 1865-1901. (Order No. 1350082, San Jose State University). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Marot explained the importance of the library in 1902: "It was founded on the idea that freely offered opportunities from education in economics and political science make directly for a more intelligent public opinion and a higher citizenship." The collection included foreign and domestic literature. It consisted of six hundred books, over two thousand pamphlets, and ninety-one periodicals. This literature, more particularly the periodicals, was not found elsewhere and thus met a most specific community need. The entire collection was donated by individuals and various organizations such as American Academy of Political and Social Science,

Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, Church Social Union, Civic Club of Philadelphia, Direct Legislation League, '' Englishwoman's Review'', Fabian Society, Humboldt Publishing Company,

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

, Indian Rights Association, Labor Exchange, and Land Nationalization League, among others. To keep up to date with current information, the library collected news clippings and government publications, reports of labor societies, and other similar works. Indeed, a considerable part of the collection consisted of government, state, and municipal reports received from the United States government, the different states, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, and

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. Although the collection was small, teachers, students, and library patrons found its classified and indexed pamphlets and magazine literature concerning present-day problems to be satisfactory. In addition, the patrons could purchase books and were permitted to check out books when they were unable to come to the reading room during library hours. The library was open daily from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. and on Sunday, until 10 p.m. The small library soon became "the center of liberal thought in Philadelphia"—a popular gathering place for Philadelphian reformers and socialists. In addition to the usual work of a special library, public and private lectures and classes were given to different associations. Besides being the chairwoman of the library committee, Marot was also on the lectures committee, which were all well attended, the rooms being, in fact, more than filled. The first lecture addressed the topic of "The Economics of Socialism." It was given free on October 30, 1897 by James R. MacDonald of the London

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. T ...

and future

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern ...

. At the second meeting, on February 8, 1898, Professor

Joseph French Johnson Joseph French Johnson (August 24, 1853 – January 22, 1925''The Phi Beta Kappa Key: The Official Publication of the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa'', Volume 6. Press of the Unionist-gazette Association, 1925. p. 109) was an American economist, ...

, Dr.

Henry Rogers Seager Henry Rogers Seager (July 21, 1870 – August 23, 1930, Kiev, Russia) was an American economist, and Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University, who served as president of the American Association for Labor Legislation. Inspired by t ...

, Charles Richardson, and Professor William I. Hull discussed and lectured on "Education in Economics." On March 19, 1898 a lecture on "Economic Education, the Salvation of Society" was given by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton. Through her library, Helen Marot participated in educating Philadelphians to social changes and pursued the socialist cause for building a more just and humane society with perseverance, courage, and a combination of hardheaded realism and guileless romanticism.

Labor and publishing work

In 1899 she published ''A Handbook of Labor Literature'' and also conducted and investigation for the U.S. Industrial Commission into working conditions in the custom tailoring trades in Philadelphia. In 1902 Marot investigated child labor in New York City for the Association of Neighborhood Workers and helped form the New York Child Labor Committee. With

Florence Kelley Florence Moltrop Kelley (September 12, 1859 – February 17, 1932) was a social and political reformer and the pioneer of the term wage abolitionism. Her work against sweatshops and for the minimum wage, eight-hour workdays, and children's rig ...

and Josephine Clara Goldmark she drew up a report on child labor in the city that influential in the passage of the 1903 Compulsory Education Act by the state legislature.Nutter, K. (2010). Helen Marot. American National Biography. Available from: Gale Virtual Reference Library, Ipswich, MA. In 1906 Marot became executive secretary of the New York branch of the national

. Marot also was responsible for creating the Bookkeepers, Stenographers and Accountants Union of New York. She was the organizer and leader of the first great strike of shirtwaist makers and dressmakers (1909–10) under the banner of the new

International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), whose members were employed in the women's clothing industry, was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membe ...

. In 1913, Marot resigned from her work with the trade union league. In 1914, she published ''American Labor Unions'' (1914), a work on the syndicalist

Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...

. She then served on the editorial board of ''

The Masses ''The Masses'' was a graphically innovative magazine of socialist politics published monthly in the United States from 1911 until 1917, when federal prosecutors brought charges against its editors for conspiring to obstruct conscription. It was ...

'' (1916–17), a radical journal. After, she then served on the staff of ''

The Dial ''The Dial'' was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the chief publication of the Transcendentalists. From the 1880s to 1919 it was revived as a political review and ...

'' (1918–20). She was also a member of the U.S. Industrial Relations Commission (1914–16). Helen Marot lived with her life partner, progressive educational reformer Caroline Pratt, until her death in on June 3, 1940, in New York, New York.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Marot, Helen American librarians American women librarians Workers' rights activists 1865 births 1940 deaths Writers from Philadelphia American women writers American librarianship and human rights Trade unionists from Pennsylvania International Ladies Garment Workers Union leaders Activists from Philadelphia American women trade unionists