Mary Anderson (labor leader)
| Mary Anderson | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 1st Director of the United States Women's Bureau | |
|
In office 1920–1944 |
|
| President |
Woodrow Wilson Warren Harding Calvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover Franklin D. Roosevelt |
| Preceded by | Position created |
| Succeeded by | Frieda S. Miller |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
August 27, 1872 Lidköping, Sweden |
| Died | 1964 |
| Nationality | American |
Mary Anderson (August 27, 1872 – 1964) was a Labor activist and an advocate for women in the workplace.
Mary Anderson was born in Lidköping, Sweden 1872, daughter of Magnus and Matilda (Johnson) Anderson. She emigrated to the United States when she was sixteen in 1888. Once in America she worked as a dishwasher at a lumberjacks' boarding house in Ludington, Michigan. She moved to Chicago where she worked in a garment factory and as a shoe stitcher in West Pullman. She joined the Boot and Shoe Workers Union and was elected president of the women's stitchers Local 94 in 1900. She became a leader in the Women's Trade Union League in Chicago, Illinois. She gained valuable experience from the Women’s Trade Union League in public administration. She then applied these skills to her work with the Women’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor which she was the first director of in 1920. She directed and used the Bureau for 25 years to better the working conditions, wages, and hours for women. And even once she retired from office Mary Anderson continued to fight for the rights of working women.
The main goal of this league was to organize women and to gain support for a union. This union would strive to get safer factory conditions for women workers. Mary Anderson had first hand experience of the very dangerous working conditions of the factory floor and knew things had to be improved.
It was during Anderson’s time in the WTUL that’s she began a friendship with Jane Addams who would greatly influence Anderson’s views on helping all people, not just women. In Anderson’s eulogy to Addams she tells of how, “‘She was not one of those feminist who are for women alone. Her heart and her brilliant mind recognized that as long as one group could be exploited society as a whole must suffer’”. Anderson too believed that the work of feminists should not be constrained to only women’s issues but more importantly address broader social concerns.
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